As a rebel control player I feel predator is kind of obnoxious. Regardless how of much stress ion or blocking I do fat turrets still get 1-2 rerolls and 1-2 points of auto damage reduction. Predator isn't so broken on fighters that have to point and still end up in sadtown when they get blocked, but on turrets it further prevents then from actually having to fly.

As a rebel control player I feel predator is kind of obnoxious. Regardless how of much stress ion or blocking I do fat turrets still get 1-2 rerolls and 1-2 points of auto damage reduction. Predator isn't so broken on fighters that have to point and still end up in sadtown when they get blocked, but on turrets it further prevents then from actually having to fly.

So you like loading people up with stress and ions to deny actions and are upset that they get a reroll with their elite talent??? QQ

I do not believe in the original posters premise. He believes other ept are not taken because ptl, predator and VI are to good. He is wrong.

Before ptl and well before predator was released no one took ept on most ships.

Generic swarms ruled the sky with the rare squad leader or VI taken. Mind you this was wave one and most of wave two but it proves no one took the other epts not because of ptl being superior but the other epts not being worth the point cost. And while generics without epts were popular ships lists like the 3 amigos were popular as well and still epts were not popular.

Even the eventual release of ptl still wasn't popular except on a few ships notably fel. The biggest debate was whether marksmanship was worth it on Han shoots first not if he should take ptl instead but the fact marksmanship wasn't even worth the 3 pts.

The only issue with ept or any upgrade is its either worth the points cost or it's not. This is sometimes dependant on a ship whose own pilot ability pairs well with a specific ept.

As a rebel control player I feel predator is kind of obnoxious. Regardless how of much stress ion or blocking I do fat turrets still get 1-2 rerolls and 1-2 points of auto damage reduction. Predator isn't so broken on fighters that have to point and still end up in sadtown when they get blocked, but on turrets it further prevents then from actually having to fly.

So you like loading people up with stress and ions to deny actions and are upset that they get a reroll with their elite talent??? QQ

Control builds stop degenerate play

Most of it stems from a lot of the EPT and the upgrade cards in general being overcosted. Expose is worse than predator and costs more, so of course no will take it.

As a rebel control player I feel predator is kind of obnoxious. Regardless how of much stress ion or blocking I do fat turrets still get 1-2 rerolls and 1-2 points of auto damage reduction. Predator isn't so broken on fighters that have to point and still end up in sadtown when they get blocked, but on turrets it further prevents then from actually having to fly.

So you like loading people up with stress and ions to deny actions and are upset that they get a reroll with their elite talent??? QQ

Pfsshhhhh I don't qq I pew pew bro

Troll Topic

@OP:

An extra action in X-Wing is pretty much worth three points and a trade-off, which both PtL and Predator have. I think the reason that you see them so much has more to do with other EPTs being underpowered than with them being overpowered -- like the X-Wing/B-Wing deal. A lot of EPTs fall in the zone of being worth about 1.5 or 2.5 points, and FFG likes conservative pricing. As a result, you get things like EH, which is cool, but not really competitive at two points (and too good at one point) -- it needs to do a bit more to be worth the cost.

One of the problems with EPTs is that you often are already paying to have the slot, so you pretty much need to get value right away, which squeezes out more niche abilities.

As someone who has tried Opportunist A-wings with marginal success...there is a reason Opportunist never caught on.

First, you need ways to guarantee the opponent doesn't have tokens so that means spending points on Wes (or similar). As soon as that one **** dies the rest of the list really starts to suffer.

Opportunist is also expensive at 4 points and does leave you stressed at the end of it all.

Outmaneuver though is a card people should look more at, especially one something like brobots.

always easy to use, but it's a good one. I put one on IG-88D and had a grand time of it against a TIE swarm.

As a rebel control player I feel predator is kind of obnoxious. Regardless how of much stress ion or blocking I do fat turrets still get 1-2 rerolls and 1-2 points of auto damage reduction. Predator isn't so broken on fighters that have to point and still end up in sadtown when they get blocked, but on turrets it further prevents then from actually having to fly.

So you like loading people up with stress and ions to deny actions and are upset that they get a reroll with their elite talent??? QQ

Nah, its part of the game, but I felt that if we were discussing some of the unexpectedly high upside that the card in question has.

VI, PTL, and Predator are all very different issues.VI is a symptom of an underlying problem with the pilot-skill mechanic. The metagame defines a distribution of pilot-skill. The current distribution includes a lot of PS1-2 ships, a few PS3 ships, very few PS4-7 ships, a few PS8, and lots of PS9-10.Accordingly, jumping from PS2 to PS4 gets you ahead of a big group of ships, jumping from PS6 to PS8 does almost nothing, and jumping from PS8 to PS10 gets you ahead of almost everything.

But Veteran Instincts ignores that distribution entirely, and charges a flat (and cheap) cost regardless of where in the distribution a ship falls.

Re: VI doing nothing on PS6. Strong exception: Dual IG88.

Re: fixed cost for VI: you just hit on the fundamental truth of ALL upgrades -- they are always most effective on more expensive ships. I.e. in the case of Predator, it costs 3 points to increase damage by ~30% vs PS3+. That's nearly auto include on a 50+ point ship.

I love Outmaneuver. It's a good card. It's not always easy to use, but it's a good one. I put one on IG-88D and had a grand time of it against a TIE swarm.

A couple people have already mentioned this. It's not that Predator and PTL are overpowered, the alternatives are just too expensive. If a bunch of the 2 and 3 point EPTs got dropped down to 0 and 1 point they'd be much more common.

+1

If decoy cost 1 or 0 points, I'd run GSP + Title + PTL + Decoy, Roark + TLT + Crewbacca, for the simple joy of being able to pass PS 12 to anything within range 5 :-)

I like Outmaneuver on 2 Atk ships. I don't think the value is there for 3 Atk ships.

Good question Khyros. To make more EPTs enticing, I wouldn't make any of the EPTs more expensive. Instead, many of the present options aren't cheap enough to really make you struggle in the choice between them. Lower priced cards would also improve the diversity of the game as we'd see more cards in play, whereas raising point costs would eat into other ships in your squad. I'd change the following:

• Expose - 2 pts instead of 4. It's too situational in that it lowers your defense (plenty of turrets make that a big gamble) and it requires an action, so it should be less than the Predator benchmark of 3.
• Opportunist - 2 pts instead of 4. Also situational and it requires a stress, so it should be less than Predator.
• Outmaneuver - 2 pts instead of 3. A very good card that rewards great flying, but just a bit too expensive.
• Daredevil - 1 pt instead of 3. This can't compete with PTL and requires that a ship have the boost action. There needs to be significant incentive to give up the PTL options of focus/evade or boost/roll.
• Marksmanship - 2 pts instead of 3. A very good card, but it takes up an action so it can't compete at 3 points with Predator.
• Wingman - 1 pt instead of 2. The range 1 limitation is too steep to justify 2 points in my opinion.
• Intimidation - 1 pt instead of 2. This card really benefits lower PS blockers, and there aren't many pilot options that have a lower PS with an EPT slot.
• Elusiveness - 1 pt instead of 2. This is somewhat like a reverse Predator, but you have to stress yourself and can only use it once per round, so it has to be significantly cheaper.
• Expert Handling - 1 pt instead of 2. You don't always need to roll or have TL on you, and if you don't have the roll action then you are stressed.

Then there are a few EPTs in the 1 point category that would benefit from a token similar to Extra Munitions. In other words, if you chose those EPTs then you put one EPT token on top of each, and when you first use that ability you remove the token and then flip the card after the second use. This would make their point value much more reasonable. That category includes:

• Lightning Reflexes
• Crack Shot
• Adrenaline Rush

For the vast majority of ships with an EPT slot, I just can't see spending a point for a one time ability, all of which are quite situational. If I could use them twice though... well now I have some debate!

​

Expert Handling is too good at 1 pt. Would you take an Engine Upgrade if it cost 2 pts, even if it cost a stress? It was VERY popular on Falcons until the barrel roll change. No, it isn't worth it on ships that already have barrel roll, but gaining barrel roll is the whole reason on taking the card.

Expert Handling is too good at 1 pt. Would you take an Engine Upgrade if it cost 2 pts, even if it cost a stress?

nope

fatties only have X-wing greens and only Dash can combine said greens with an obstacle ignoring ability. If EU inflicted stress, it'd be a lot more situational and while you'd still see it (for lack of better option; no thrusters) it'd be severely hampered.

as for EH on falcons, you were right about it being popular pre-change (because pre-change barrel-roll was ******* stupid) but now you don't really see it much. There's a very good reason for that.

And again, Expert Handling is 2 pts vs Engine Upgrade's 4. Barrel Roll wouldn't help some of the high PS pilots, even if it caused a stress? If doing something caused stressed was universially bad, people wouldn't be k-turning.

It's not an obvious choice, sure. But, that is a good thing. I think trying to make all EPTs equal is a bad thing. Niche uses are great.

When you got a card pool as vast as the EPT slot has there are always going to be certain cards that stand out and those few cards will be taken while all others are ignored.

The EPT slot and cards has been around since Wave 1 and since almost all ships end up having an EPT slot it is the most commonly used and largest upgrade card pool in x-wing. The second would go to modifications which suffer the same problem. It also suffers the same problem that EPTs have even more so that every ship can take one.

The biggest problem with EPTs and Modifications and the reason why you see only a few get taken instead of an evenly distributed sample of the entire set is that for just about all ships you can only take one. Take crew for example plenty of ships have multiple crew slots so choosing the best crew upgrade is not as important as choosing good crew that synergies with the ship. Since only a handful of pilots have EPTs only only a few can take more than one you are stuck with what EPT works the best and have to ignore all others.

If you want to see different EPTs on the table then you would need to see two things. First more pilots that can take a second EPT, second EPTs that work well with other upgrades.

I'd like to raise a different question: Why are most of the EPTs so bad compared to crew cards? I agree with has been said about EPTs. Most of them are bad, some are niche, 3-4 are always good.

While there's an EPT that gives you a stress when you take another action, there's a crew that gives you a focus when you clear a stress!

You want action economy? Here you go: Kyle, Recon Specialist, (arguably, almost a free evade) C3PO, Weapons Engineer, Han Solo (transforms a TL into TL or focus, arguably half an action), Ysanne, Bossk, Outlaw tech, K4 Security Droid etc.

These all put any EPTs to shame in regards to action economy. Most of them do not have any downsides, a lot of them do not have a special condition, or are just plain cheap. We also have a lot of crew cards currently in the game, and ships which do have the slots usually carry more than one, so guess what happens? Ships with more crew cards get exponentially better! And there isn't just action economy! Crew cards have a lot of control options, they grant special actions or abilities, it's usually a matter of "what do I need more" and not a case of "what is crap and what isn't" as it is with EPTs.

Now, I'm not one of those PWT haters, but the imbalance between upgrades is such that (Crew >> Systems >> EPT), whereas EPT should be the better one ("Elite", 1 per ship). If FFG wants smaller crewless ships to shine through, we need better EPTs. Small ship only EPTs are a bit heavy handed, but they work. Lightning Reflexes is a cool example, now give us something that doesn't just work one time!

NO ONE used VI until wave 4. It might as well not have existed. Then the Phantom screwed that up for everyone, and VI has become one of the most important EPTs you can take

Except it did,

Black Squadron swarm with PS 6 was a thing for a few and it was also used on Lando (which granted, we never see flown anymore), VI Turr was flown a lot, hell even Luke and Vader lovers used to use it.

I'd like to raise a different question: Why are most of the EPTs so bad compared to crew cards? I agree with has been said about EPTs. Most of them are bad, some are niche, 3-4 are always good.

While there's an EPT that gives you a stress when you take another action, there's a crew that gives you a focus when you clear a stress!

You want action economy? Here you go: Kyle, Recon Specialist, (arguably, almost a free evade) C3PO, Weapons Engineer, Han Solo (transforms a TL into TL or focus, arguably half an action), Ysanne, Bossk, Outlaw tech, K4 Security Droid etc.

These all put any EPTs to shame in regards to action economy. Most of them do not have any downsides, a lot of them do not have a special condition, or are just plain cheap. We also have a lot of crew cards currently in the game, and ships which do have the slots usually carry more than one, so guess what happens? Ships with more crew cards get exponentially better! And there isn't just action economy! Crew cards have a lot of control options, they grant special actions or abilities, it's usually a matter of "what do I need more" and not a case of "what is crap and what isn't" as it is with EPTs.

Now, I'm not one of those PWT haters, but the imbalance between upgrades is such that (Crew >> Systems >> EPT), whereas EPT should be the better one ("Elite", 1 per ship). If FFG wants smaller crewless ships to shine through, we need better EPTs. Small ship only EPTs are a bit heavy handed, but they work. Lightning Reflexes is a cool example, now give us something that doesn't just work one time!

Crew slots are limited on a per-ship basis, though, and they can be balanced for a smaller pool of ships during design.

EPTs have to be balanced for almost every ship (minus Lambda, K-Wing, Punisher)

I'm pretty sure everyone would agree that PTL is broken (and by that I mean undercosted on the ships that use it).

PTL's not broken by any means: it still limits your maneuvers severely if used every turn on A-wings and Interceptors. The thing with A-wings and Interceptors is they have green turns, which makes PTL really, really good on them. I wouldn't say it was undercosted because PTL interceptors are appropriately priced. If you raised its cost, other ships without green turns aren't likely to take it. Then you have a near autoinclude on two ships that's a very poor choice on the rest of the game. Better to have it glued to the interceptor than unuseable elsewhere.

Furthermore, the boost/barrel combo's practically the defining trait of the interceptor. Without it it's an expensive TIE fighter. PTL isn't broken on the A-wing or TIE interceptor, and it's certainly not autoinclude on any other ship.

I'd like to raise a different question: Why are most of the EPTs so bad compared to crew cards? I agree with has been said about EPTs. Most of them are bad, some are niche, 3-4 are always good.

While there's an EPT that gives you a stress when you take another action, there's a crew that gives you a focus when you clear a stress!

You want action economy? Here you go: Kyle, Recon Specialist, (arguably, almost a free evade) C3PO, Weapons Engineer, Han Solo (transforms a TL into TL or focus, arguably half an action), Ysanne, Bossk, Outlaw tech, K4 Security Droid etc.

These all put any EPTs to shame in regards to action economy. Most of them do not have any downsides, a lot of them do not have a special condition, or are just plain cheap. We also have a lot of crew cards currently in the game, and ships which do have the slots usually carry more than one, so guess what happens? Ships with more crew cards get exponentially better! And there isn't just action economy! Crew cards have a lot of control options, they grant special actions or abilities, it's usually a matter of "what do I need more" and not a case of "what is crap and what isn't" as it is with EPTs.

Now, I'm not one of those PWT haters, but the imbalance between upgrades is such that (Crew >> Systems >> EPT), whereas EPT should be the better one ("Elite", 1 per ship). If FFG wants smaller crewless ships to shine through, we need better EPTs. Small ship only EPTs are a bit heavy handed, but they work. Lightning Reflexes is a cool example, now give us something that doesn't just work one time!

Crew slots are limited on a per-ship basis, though, and they can be balanced for a smaller pool of ships during design.

EPTs have to be balanced for almost every ship (minus Lambda, K-Wing, Punisher)

Balancing ships with multiple crew slots is more difficult, if they're inclined to try that. And even one single crew slot is amazingly good and giving a ship a single crew is worth great consideration. Compare giving an EPT to a ship to giving it a crew slot. It gives the ship incredible versatility. It's a much more difficult decision (or so I think) whether to give a ship a crew slot, than an EPT. Power and variety of the crew slot make it hard to balance, in my opinion. The best you get out of an EPT is another action + stress or half an action, right now.

I agree that it's somewhat difficult to balance an upgrade that can be equipped to almost any ship, but currently this is a non-issue, as the standard is set by Predator and PtL for effectiveness. It becomes worth it on expensive ships where the cost of the EPT is amortized to the total cost of the ship. More effective EPTs would mean putting more aces on the board, or more ships with EPTs that are really good. I think that would be fun and interesting to play both casually and competitively.