Anyone else feel like ion control has been pushed out of the meta a fair bit?

TLT pretty much supplanted ICT, and due to its effect on B-Wings we're seeing less of those, with or without Ion Cannon. We've never really seen Defenders with it either, the shuttle generally doesn't bother (and with Palpatine almost ANY other shuttle upgrade is out due to expense).

Now, this is essentially all backtracking from a card idea that popped into my head as an elegant way to add damage into ion:

"Your attack results can only be cancelled by the defender's <evade> results. You cannot equip this card if your primary weapon value is "2" or lower."

Modification, not sure on points.

I /think/ it has to be cut away from K-Wing/Y-Wing/HWK due to TLT (and BTL in the Y's case), but otherwise it could work on the B-Wing, Defender, Lambda, etc

I'm not sure I follow. Is it the control aspect of ionisation that's gone missing? Or is damage an issue?

I feel ICT Y-Wings still have a place, with or without the BTL title, and while Ion Cannons add cost they are still quite effective on a pair of B-Wings. Alternatively two Ion Cannon Heavy Scyks only clock in at 38 points and add a solid degree of control.

I think the usefulness and straightforwardness of TLTs have taken the spotlight for a time but I believe control builds are still around, and if you want total control you need ions as well as stress.

I think we might be seeing something soon, and with the way people are talking about the Ghost and Phantom titles I think the reliable ICT will be rather popular there.

Something's missing.

The basic prevalence of stress-control seems to boil down to the fact that you can get the stress effect AND full damage (Tactician, R3-A2, etc), whereas ion shots always sacrifice damage unless you're talking Ion Torpedoes or maybe Dace.

It's a combination of things relating to the Ion effect:

1) It requires you to land two hits in order to ionize a Large ship. Given how common those are in the meta, you often feel like you're just plinking away for little effect.

2) Turrets will still be able to shoot you, even when ionized. This is compounded by the fact that many turrets are also large-based ships, so spending two attacks to ionize them while they shoot back with their full firepower is a losing proposition, especially since they also get actions.

3) Many of the ships that can take Ion Cannons are usually losing a red die to shoot you with it at R1.

Ion Effects have a place, especially in Epic (1 damage, -1 energy gain to regen shields and recharge weapons). But it's hard to consistently get value from them in standard skirmishes.

You know, a title for the Defender would partially fix this issue. It's been suggested many times by many people in many ways.

That is pretty elegant. I've thought about this recently myself while thinking about improving the Defender, and I came up with something with a similar goal:

Fire-linked Ion Cannon [Cannon]

After you perform a primary weapon attack that hits, you may assign one ion token to the defending ship.

You lose out on the secondary weapon status, but you get the full damage from your primary. Cost is negotiable (maybe free for the Defender).

You know, a title for the Defender would partially fix this issue. It's been suggested many times by many people in many ways.

99% of suggested Defender titles have either been broken or clunky, and fixing ion ONLY for the Defender seems like a bad move when something like this works in the mod-slot.

I don't see a way to make ICT better without making it more powerful than a TLT. The card needs to stay the same (FFG has yet to print a revised card), so maybe changing the way ion tokens work would make ICT and Ion cannon more useful. Maybe each ion token should count as one or even two damage points (that only affects shields)?

One way to do it, although certainly not the best way, would be to rephrase the card into something like this:

If this attack hits the target ship, any damage dealt is reduced by 1, down to a minimum of 1. Then, the target receives 1 ion token.

You know, a title for the Defender would partially fix this issue. It's been suggested many times by many people in many ways.

99% of suggested Defender titles have either been broken or clunky, and fixing ion ONLY for the Defender seems like a bad move when something like this works in the mod-slot.

Better to have a universal ion fix like this packaged with a separate Defender fix. Anyone can use the fixed ions, and they are still thematically linked with the defender.

I have been running 1 Y Wing with TLT and 1 Y Wing with Ion + R3 A2/Title. Adding them to a Bandit and Poe. The 1 point difference puts my build at 99 points, so I ended up with initiative 7 out of my 8 games at World's. Still lost 6 of those games, but hey, I can chalk that up to first time tournament jitters. Looking back, I definitely didn't use the stresshog enough.

One way to fix ion is that when a ship is ionized it only clears the minimum amount that was required to ionize it.

Thus a small ship with 2 ion tokens will only clear one per turn, meaning that each ion token is much more serious than before.

You can't just shrug your shoulders and get rid of the excess ion tokens, your ship is out of the game for several turns, this significantly buffs ion bombs and ion pulse missiles. Thus we will have to balance fat PWT immunity to ion and losing 1/2 points with small ships and ion weakness.

Imo, ICT is a dead card atm. It can be USEFUL for some silly competitive games, but not COMPETITIVE to TLT.

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I don't agree with your fix.

But I do thing ICT and ion cards could really use some help.

Mods like: 3pts - at the end of the round, an ioned opponent at R1 suffers 1 dmg.

Imo, ICT is a dead card atm. It can be USEFUL for some silly competitive games, but not COMPETITIVE to TLT.

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I don't agree with your fix.

But I do thing ICT and ion cards could really use some help.

Mods like: 3pts - at the end of the round, an ioned opponent at R1 suffers 1 dmg.

This is dace bonearms dream

What about simply tweaking things (whether by an upgrade card, errata, etc) such that:

"When a ship clears any ion tokens it may not perform any attacks outside of its primary firing arc for the rest of the round."

I think that would make ions interesting enough in the current meta to let them see some action again, but wouldn't make them stupid OP.

It's always annoyed me that ships are allowed to do anything after they've been ioned and only see the negative affects during the next activation phase. If it were up to me, if ioned during combat that ship would lose its turn to shoot and move one forward next activation. Hey bombed and you would lose your action, shot, and move one forward.

This would probably put too much emphasis on shooting first or dropping bombs, however.

1.) What if ion disabled out of arc shots?

2.) What if it canceled actions like Conners do?

It could always be that any excess ion tokens that are removed at the end phase deal 1 damage each, that would make repeatedly ioning something in one turn potentially fatal.

It could always be that any excess ion tokens that are removed at the end phase deal 1 damage each, that would make repeatedly ioning something in one turn potentially fatal.

I do kind of like this effect, but I feel like Phantom-tier reference-card changes like this should be a last resort for only the most broken cases.

Wait till we see what tractor beam does; maybe used in coordination the two could make for a combo.

If tractor beam lets you alter the opponent's course, and Ion forces a 1-speed move, you might be able to seriously manipulate enemy movement.

Either that or tractor beam is the fix, a secondary weapon with a similar-yet-different effect.

I actually like the idea of a crit Ion. Maybe in the form of a modication. Basically, if your Ion gets a crit through in it's total roll, then cancel all results, do 1 dmg, 1 ion token and the Ion'd ship treats it PS as 0 next round.

Or

Change the rules so an ion'd ship moves 1 forward first before all others reveal their dial, making the chance of an ion'd ship bumping or not being able to reposition much higher.

Pretty much is a damage issue. As I said Ion only provides full control if paired with something. R3-A2 Ion Warthog is probably the best build that comes to mind. However just becaused you are ionized with the exception of conner nets you can still take actiosn and relocate your ship out of arc. Also in a large ship it takes two ion tokens, and as most large ships tend to have turrets the effect of ion being able to keep you from getting hit just goes away.

So when it all comes down what provides better control of your opponent's ship: locking a ship at 1 straight or removing a ship from the board?

It's a combination of things relating to the Ion effect:

1) It requires you to land two hits in order to ionize a Large ship. Given how common those are in the meta, you often feel like you're just plinking away for little effect.

2) Turrets will still be able to shoot you, even when ionized. This is compounded by the fact that many turrets are also large-based ships, so spending two attacks to ionize them while they shoot back with their full firepower is a losing proposition, especially since they also get actions.

3) Many of the ships that can take Ion Cannons are usually losing a red die to shoot you with it at R1.

Ion Effects have a place, especially in Epic (1 damage, -1 energy gain to regen shields and recharge weapons). But it's hard to consistently get value from them in standard skirmishes.

Ion pulse missiles actually ionise large ships with one shot.

That said, it takes 2 actions (or 1 action each from 2 ship, tricks like Kyle, Garven ,Jendon etc) to set them up with a good shot (with a chance to push through the defenses) - making it incredible situational. Very diificult to set up, and even if you manage to set it up (w/o being killed in the meantime), it is far from sure that firing now is a good option (very, very unlikely that you managed setup in time to force the big ship over the edge, or on an asteroid (Dash don't cares at all)). Then still the damned fat PWT (or SWT) still will fire back.

And 3 points wasted.

One way to fix ion is that when a ship is ionized it only clears the minimum amount that was required to ionize it.

Thus a small ship with 2 ion tokens will only clear one per turn, meaning that each ion token is much more serious than before.

You can't just shrug your shoulders and get rid of the excess ion tokens, your ship is out of the game for several turns, this significantly buffs ion bombs and ion pulse missiles. Thus we will have to balance fat PWT immunity to ion and losing 1/2 points with small ships and ion weakness.

That would be a good idea.

I am not so sure about some of the other propositions, like bereaving a ship of all actions, firing and movement - this would massively fuel the Acewing syndrom. Higher skill pilots consistently bullying the *** out of lower pilot skill pilots and killing them off before they ever(!) can do a thing. Big problem for lower pilot skill support ships like Hwks, Y-wings etc, and a lot of Scum aces.

Amend the Ion rules as follows:

Ion Token:

• Planning Phase: The owner does not assign a maneuver dial to this ship.
• Activation Phase: The owner moves the ship as if it were assigned a white [1 forward] maneuver. After executing this maneuver, remove all ion tokens from the ship. For each ion token removed, also remove one shield token from the ship. It may perform actions as normal.
• Combat Phase: The ship may attack as normal, but reduce its Agility by 1, to a minimum of zero, until the end of the Combat Phase.

Ion Token effects do not trigger unless, at the beginning of the Planning Phase, there are enough Ion Tokens assigned to a ship to cause it to suffer the effects of ion tokens.

We need some weapons that deal out 'no attack' tokens. Maybe some Heavy Ion Cannon that throws ion and no attack tokens but no damage, wouldn't be too expensive.

Of course I would love a 'double cannon' Heavy Ion upgrade to come with the Skipray Blastboat which would have two cannon slots. The cannon would throw two ions and a crit, or maybe throw out an upturned damage card instead of a crit to represent going through shields. And if it also adds a no attack token the we can have the first 20 point upgrade! Yay!

Paid this with a missile upgrade for TIE defender only that adds a second cannon slot.

And no I'm not off my meds...I think.