I'd rather the Defender became worth it's current points, than for it to be costed appropriately for it's current stats. Buffs, not cost reductions.

The Defender needs action economy- 1 focus token doesnt cut it when a naked generic is a third your list. I'm a fan of the "Focus token at the start of combat if you have a shot" fix, even if it ends up costing 2-3 points on top of the current defender, because a generic gets 2 tokens for defence if played well, and the aces get more alpha strike options.

It would turn Vessery into another dumb OP ace ship. You'd slap an HLC on him and fly him with a TIE FO/TC Academy/Lambda with the title /ATC Vader and autowin with your 93% chance of 4 hits every shot. At least the Phantom has to wait a turn with FCS, or hope that your first shot doesn't do a plink damage that denies gunner.

No. Not every ship needs action economy up the ass in order to be just as OP and game breaking as the broken top tier ****.

Give its attacks the ion effect or something. Give it a free mod so you can get an extra shield or engines. Don't add yet another OP hyper ship to the game.

It would turn Vessery into another dumb OP ace ship. You'd slap an HLC on him and fly him with a TIE FO/TC Academy/Lambda with the title /ATC Vader and autowin with your 93% chance of 4 hits every shot. At least the Phantom has to wait a turn with FCS, or hope that your first shot doesn't do a plink damage that denies gunner.

No. Not every ship needs action economy up the ass in order to be just as OP and game breaking as the broken top tier ****.

Give its attacks the ion effect or something. Give it a free mod so you can get an extra shield or engines. Don't add yet another OP hyper ship to the game.

Once you slap on HLC, you're paying as much as Corran for a PS6. With THAT much point invested into him, I WANT Vessery to be an OP ace. (who gets countered by PS7+ arcdodgers.)

No. Not every ship needs action economy up the ass in order to be just as OP and game breaking as the broken top tier ****.

BUT

You're wrong, every ship does need that, because the "broken top tier crit" stops being broken when that happens.

The HLC basically is action economy. An unmodded HLC shot is only slightly less average damage than 3 attack dice with Focus at Range 2. Better at range 3. And you can still have Predator/Lone Wolf on top of that, and spend your Focus on offense for a very high probability of 4 hits, with no extra rules needed.

It's why the 2 Defender list works at all. The best defense us overwhelming offense

Agreed. I can't help but love the defender, but it sucks when it gets wiped out in a round. Sometimes it's unstoppable and other times it just gets blown to pieces.

Which is why it should have the shields of a B-Wing like it's supposed to.

Since this isn't the kind of game where they nerf a lot of stuff or forbid the use of ships or cards that turn out to be OP, the only legitimate way to balance the game is to buff underpowered things up match the top tier.

Yes, this causes power creep. But better that then having half of their model line be unusable in competitive play.