Fellow brobots players. I think IG-88A just became a thing.

It became a thing in Wave 7. I've seen more ships on the table since it was released.

trying him out tonight, even though the rules don't hit for two weeks

Interesting point, especially since his shield recovery happens before the end of the round. It could be the difference between ending a match with 4 health vs 5.

not necessarily

the amount of shields you recover are going to have to be significant to exceed the damage you cancel with C's evades or D's arc dodging shenanigans

not necessarily

the amount of shields you recover are going to have to be significant to exceed the damage you cancel with C's evades or D's arc dodging shenanigans

But with a rule change that sees the end (or at least decline) of 2-ship lists, and increases the viability of swarms...less 2-ship lists and more 8-ship lists does, indeed, increase the usability of IG-88A.

When there were only two enemy on the table to begin with, his value was pretty low. When it's likely you'll be killing 4 or 5 ships before the match ends...suddenly a substantially greater value.

not necessarily

the amount of shields you recover are going to have to be significant to exceed the damage you cancel with C's evades or D's arc dodging shenanigans

I always hear that argument (especially from myself when building brobot lists), and yet it never bears out on the table as well is it sounds in theory.

"Team A"

not necessarily

the amount of shields you recover are going to have to be significant to exceed the damage you cancel with C's evades or D's arc dodging shenanigans

But with the popularity of stresshog and Mara Jade/Rebel Captive/Tactician, and even in combat situations without those players, I see few enough use of C's evades and just as many opportunities pulling s-loops. A's ability kicks in regardless of your stress--it's an ability that is independent of the action and mobility economy, because you can totally kill a smaller ship regardless of your stress, but you can't get an evade token or pull an s-loop if you're stressed (so those actions/manuevers are only happening, at best, every-other-round, which is about as frequently as I would expect to destroy a TIE Fighter/Z-95/X-Wing/A-Wing/TIE Interceptor, especially if I'm taking upgrades such as Predator/VI/FCS).

The new MOV ruling ought to make Brobot players desperate--desperate to kill opposing ships quickly. That desperation ought to turn into faster kills (more offensive upgrades), which in turn makes for more shield regeneration. I am not sure that a defensive IG-88 list could survive with the saturation of TLT-4-ship lists.

And now I'm going to totally contradict what I just said, as I am even more excited now to try my looks-good-on-paper-but-I'm-probably-going-to-get-wrecked Wired Sensor Jammer Brobots.

The meta is dead. Long live the meta!

I love the new changes and how things once thought terrible are now viable.

Even now, a good chunk of lists feature 2 ships, and a good chunk more feature 3-4. That only translates to 1-3 shields regained, and that's only if you kill the ship with the IG you wanted to regain shields on. It's better against swarms, but I do still prefer the free evade from C nearly every time- not only is it basically a shield back for that turn, but being able to boost out of some arcs or farther out of range AND get an evade, or being able to boost into range and still have evade for the counterattack provides a lot of flexibility. I usually made an effort to boost for positioning as much as possible and easily blocked 5-6 damage with those evades PER IG, with C in play, which is better than A could even hope for, even against the very specific list of 8 tie fighters.

tl:dr- C is way better for defensive purposes than A.

It all depends on the list, really.

Well, even without the Boost, if you Advanced Sensors-> Focus -> PtL -> Evade with A, youre still getting a decent amount of damage mitigation and damage recovery. I feel that C's evade was something nice to have but not something I could count on.

As Budgernaut is alluding to, the value of A comes in when it is stacked in addition to an evade token - either from C or from an action. A allows you to negate a damage from the evade, and then regen another damage by killing something, making it the most defensive of the ships. In a 4 ship meta, you can expect to kill 2 enemies (50%) before losing your first ship (50%). However, you have now regened 2 shields, so you're actually at 62.5% health. Furthermore, the two remaining ships will be struggling to get damage through, especially if you continuously evade. As such, it'd be possible to kill a third ship prior to losing the two additional health you regened. I'm sure Juggler can come in with his volley analysis to provide an actual value to the shield regen.

honestly dropping B's gunner effect is too much of a hit imo.

Remember it by going A & B you are not losing a Free evade. You still had to perform a boost action to get the evade which if you flew well enough meant that you were out of arch anyway.

There are also instances where the usual HLC Bot wants to just evade without the boost to better control range. I am not saying that A is 100% the way to go but I think it's a lot better as an option now.

It would also serve to be a higher target priority than B against a swarm based list as a regen ship in the end game can be frustrating.

Kris

Report from last night with A/B:

vs. Vader/Juno/Palpatine: 100-0 win by either scoring method and shield regeneration was irrelevant (ended the game down one shield token)

vs. 4x TLT Y-Wings: 100-0 win that would have been 100-25 under new scoring, and 100-50 under new scoring without regeneration. (each IG regenerated two shields. A ended at 2 hull and 1 shield; B ended at 4 hull and 2 shields)

vs Dash/Corran: 58-100 loss that made A look dumb and new scoring not matter.

Dude thanks for sharing. Hoping to see less Dash/Corran combos now under the new FAQ/Tourney Rules.

Fellow brobots players. I think IG-88A just became a thing.

So...not sure A's value has increased at all here.

I think the big take away right now is that many more pilots and/or ships have become viable options as compared to the previous meta.

Many of the top lists will still be very strong lists only now they won't have such a strangle hold on the meta.

IG88A has a legitimate place in things moving forward. He will have good match ups and bad ones, much like pretty much every other pilot/ship in the game.

One thing that stands out to me about his viability when coupled with IG88B is your opponents targeting priority. Do you let IG88A live longer and be able to use his ability in the end game where it can swing the result of the match or do you let IG88B live and be a stronger offensive threat?

Ultimately I'm just welcoming of the increased variety.

Fellow brobots players. I think IG-88A just became a thing.

How do you figure? B's double tap is still better in that denying attacks through death remains better than one shield. C's evade is worth one shield everytime you boost. D's adjusted Sloop is worth more than a shield every time you deny an attack through positioning.

So...not sure A's value has increased at all here.

C's evade is worth one shield every time you boost, and that ship gets targeted, and you don't roll enough evades, and the shot doesn't do auto-damage that negates the 1-to-1 relationship Evade tokens and damage normally have. If you run Advanced Sensors, C is golden. If you run FCS or Sensor Jammer, good luck finding room to boost every turn. (I ran Jammer, because *someone* needed to knock off that undefeated TLT list)

D's hard Sloop is worth about nothing vs turrets

A is golden vs swarms and offers nice resilience to the new scoring method

B stands for "Best"

I've found that C is often out of my control (blocks, enemy targeting choices, etc.), while A is more under my control (who needs a shield? is that ship likely to die to one shot or two?)