Y'know it's okay to admit you just personally can't get a ship to work for you I can't fly the shuttle to save my life.
Some of us have had great success with pre buff defenders because we put the effort in to learn this elite fighter.
The older defender could punch well above its weight if flown well.
I'm god-awful with the Firespray.
- The dial is just too awful. You can either fly it in a very predictable pattern, making it trivial for your opponent to block & light-up, or you can fly less predictably at the cost of taking actions (and thus relying on unmodified dice for most of the game). Veteran players will be able to consistently shut down the one thing you paid all of the points for by using the filler ships on their list to block your 4-K, which effectively leaves you with an even worse classic X-wing. Maybe if the Defender had more than one K-turn option, or if one of it's hard turn options wasn't red, or if it had something it could do other than a forward move to relieve stress...
This is so far removed from reality, I just can't let it sit.
There is no such thing as a predictable dial. I mean, there would be if there was only 1 single move on the entire dial.
There are only predictable players. If you fly predictably, you can't blame the ship, frankly. Flying unpredictably doesn't mean pulling a red move. It means figuring out what move you figure your opponent expects you to do, then figure out what move they are going to do to counter your expected move, and then counter that. And you can do this with any dial. Even a Lambda or HWK can pull off unexpected moves, and they have decidedly worse dials than a Defender...
Y'know it's okay to admit you just personally can't get a ship to work for you I can't fly the shuttle to save my life.
Some of us have had great success with pre buff defenders because we put the effort in to learn this elite fighter.
The older defender could punch well above its weight if flown well.
And yet it made no showings at worlds, even despite being offered a 1 point patch for it's dial.
I haven't even tried flying it; this isn't a personal thing for me. The ship is alleged by a very small number of people to be a competitive powerhouse, and yet lists containing it cannot penetrate the top levels of play.
I'm not trying to tell people how to play; there's nothing wrong with using the Defender. But when a new player wants to know why a ship isn't used very often in competitive play, I think we owe it to them to give an honest appraisal of the situation (albeit the situation may improve when the Defender can shoot twice on the joust. Time will tell).
Submitting to the group think is the worse thing you can do to a new player. Just because something isn't easy, doesn't mean it can't be good. Not every ship is for everyone equally.
As I said in the initial announcement, Imperial Veterans = giving Biophysical unlimited power.
It's just that the Defender falls below the effort in/power out ratio. Why put the hard work in learning how to fly it when you can take a Fat Han or a Howlrunner swarm instead? I know my first two matches with the Defender were laughable. Just before I stopped playing, people would ask me not to take it in my list because they got sick of getting their arses handed to them.
At least, that's been my experience with it anyway.
I hope the sentiment that the defender is bad continues to be pervasive. It was a fringe benny to me. It would be sad if it turned into the new soontir.
I hope the sentiment that the defender is bad continues to be pervasive. It was a fringe benny to me. It would be sad if it turned into the new soontir.
I think it's going to be TLTs, Aces, and Defenders once it's released.
I hope the sentiment that the defender is bad continues to be pervasive. It was a fringe benny to me. It would be sad if it turned into the new soontir.
I think it's going to be TLTs, Aces, and Defenders once it's released.
Only certain aces. Poe is going to hate Ion TIE/Ds real bad. He doesn't regen with R2 and is focused down way easy.
Better start working on those counter lists. 
.
I hope the sentiment that the defender is bad continues to be pervasive. It was a fringe benny to me. It would be sad if it turned into the new soontir.
I think it's going to be TLTs, Aces, and Defenders once it's released.
Only certain aces. Poe is going to hate Ion TIE/Ds real bad. He doesn't regen with R2 and is focused down way easy.
Poe may start to prefer R5-P9, and I definitely don't see X-wings making much of a comeback with them in the meta.
For the record, I took a pair of Defenders to a Regional tournament this year. I won 7 straight games before losing in the semifinals, beating lists with Corran, Chewie, Dash, Han, AKA the usual suspects at competitive events. I beat a Howlrunner swarm that went 5-1 in Swiss.
Im not saying this to brag. I'm pretty good, but I'm not some kind of savant or anything. Other than that tournament, all my play is small local stuff, where my win record with 1 or 2 Defenders is also pretty solid. I'm saying this because I want people to understand that the Defender, while not an efficiency powerhouse, is plenty capable given that one takes the time to learn how it works. It might not be good enough in present form to win a world championship, but it doesn't have broadly stated weaknesses that many accuse it of.
Can you give me a refresher on what your double Defender list was? And barring the new pilots we don't know about yet, how would you change it for the veterans box set and wave 8 in general?
Better start working on those counter lists.
Sadly I was more excited to get mine out again before this was announced, but now I find myself doing just that (plotting counter lists) since I don't like playing mirror type matches. Believe me, I've already got ideas;)
Better start working on those counter lists.
Sadly I was more excited to get mine out again before this was announced, but now I find myself doing just that (plotting counter lists) since I don't like playing mirror type matches. Believe me, I've already got ideas;)
How strongly represented has the 2400 been lately? Does it still see a lot of action? (I mean obviously not as much as the pre-nerf phantom days, but still…)
How strongly represented has the 2400 been lately? Does it still see a lot of action? (I mean obviously not as much as the pre-nerf phantom days, but still…)Better start working on those counter lists.
Sadly I was more excited to get mine out again before this was announced, but now I find myself doing just that (plotting counter lists) since I don't like playing mirror type matches. Believe me, I've already got ideas;)
Dash still does OK, but TLTs can burn him down.
For the record, I took a pair of Defenders to a Regional tournament this year. I won 7 straight games before losing in the semifinals, beating lists with Corran, Chewie, Dash, Han, AKA the usual suspects at competitive events. I beat a Howlrunner swarm that went 5-1 in Swiss.
Im not saying this to brag. I'm pretty good, but I'm not some kind of savant or anything. Other than that tournament, all my play is small local stuff, where my win record with 1 or 2 Defenders is also pretty solid. I'm saying this because I want people to understand that the Defender, while not an efficiency powerhouse, is plenty capable given that one takes the time to learn how it works. It might not be good enough in present form to win a world championship, but it doesn't have broadly stated weaknesses that many accuse it of.
Can you give me a refresher on what your double Defender list was? And barring the new pilots we don't know about yet, how would you change it for the veterans box set and wave 8 in general?
Rexlar w/ Predator, HLC, Hull Upgrade, Ion Pulse Missile
Vessery w/ Lone Wolf, HLC, Stealth Device
Can you give me a refresher on what your double Defender list was? And barring the new pilots we don't know about yet, how would you change it for the veterans box set and wave 8 in general?For the record, I took a pair of Defenders to a Regional tournament this year. I won 7 straight games before losing in the semifinals, beating lists with Corran, Chewie, Dash, Han, AKA the usual suspects at competitive events. I beat a Howlrunner swarm that went 5-1 in Swiss.
Im not saying this to brag. I'm pretty good, but I'm not some kind of savant or anything. Other than that tournament, all my play is small local stuff, where my win record with 1 or 2 Defenders is also pretty solid. I'm saying this because I want people to understand that the Defender, while not an efficiency powerhouse, is plenty capable given that one takes the time to learn how it works. It might not be good enough in present form to win a world championship, but it doesn't have broadly stated weaknesses that many accuse it of.
Rex, Predator, HLC, Hull Upgrade, Ion Pulse Missile.
Vessery, Lone Wolf, HLC, Stealth Device
I'm probably swapping Vessery for Steele. Definitely going to TIE/Ds with Ion Cannons. I'm still up in the air on Steele's EPT. Hull or Shield instead of the Stealth Device because of the prevalence of Crack Shot. The points saved will go into some missiles. Probably one Homing Missile to help break token stacking aces, not sure about the second.
I'm assuming you meant Rexlar. Because Vessery is, hands down, THE Defender pilot.
You know that something's hot with the meta when the top 4 forum threads are on the same topic:
Today I bumped Rexler in front of 4-5 range 2-3 Crackshot TIEs and one volleyed it. He had HLC and Predator and MK II but it didn't matter.
Won a Disco Vader today.
X7 title should help a lot. You should be flying them asking yourself if a turn from now, will a 4K or 3 hard be good anyways. This just buffs the gotta go fast playstyle Defender players should already be using. And it makes the 1 bank a seemingly non-optimal maneuver choice, which means you can use it to catch people by surprise on occasion.
Though, in the original incarnation of the game - the tie fighter got around it's action economy issue with howlrunner and a large amount of ships - The X-wing didn't need to guess right, because it would TL, and if it didn't need it, bank it for the next turn with focus. The 2 actions on the X-wing didn't beg for better action economy. Vader was and is still powerful for it, and that was recognized right away, it's always been part of the DNA of the game. So I don't agree with this Acewing idea, you don't need high p.s. aces to win, and you don't need crazy action economy to win. What does that even mean anyway? Reliance on PTL? Everything is Soontir? Tie X7 Defenders / Soontir / Corran / Han / Poe all play remarkably differently.
Yet you look at the "competitive level" rosters and there's an ace with wicked PS, boost sticking out of his buttocks and action economy everywhere.
Wouldn't make sense if it wasn't good.
Competitive play is all about positional options and consistency.
The game has been a positional game from the start - that has never changed, though our understanding of it has. Engine brought that to the front of the game in wave 2. You still need to predict enemy movement and pick the right action. It's much easier to pick an action in a y-wing. The Defender / Ewing have such a high cost that they struggle to match the output of multiple generics in their place. 3 tie fighters can outdamage, out action and provide more HP than Col. Vessery could on his own.
If only competitive play was about that, and not "victory on roster level"
And there's nothing wrong about generics. War is won by positioning and working in groups, not solo-Rambo.
Aces manage to outperform generics. Some even go as far as outgunning generics.
The real issue seems to be in the balance of Aces to Generics - The design philosophy seems to have been fewer aces or more generics - and those options should be equal. In the early waves, they weren't - Generics generally outclassed the Aces - Then there was a shift with the phantom and rebel aces to kick up the power of the Aces - and now generics suddenly started to struggle. There's been injection of upgrades that tries to re balance the generics. I hope FFG can someday score the right balance through the patchwork. Defender Generics are good options now. people are even talking about taking onyx squadron! They're getting there piece meal, but it's a wobbling rock tower - every addition unbalances something else.
Sometimes, I think people make mountains out of molehills - the imbalance in x-wing is fairly small, especially at the casual level. The percent differences in efficiency and point cost seem to come down to 1-2 points, and in rare cases 3-4 points.
Phantom devoured, obliterated and annihilated anything that's not a PS9+ with re-positioning.
It got nerfed, but the habits stayed.
The triangle Jouster>Turret>Dodger>Jouster was ripped apart.
It's now a war of dodgers, turrets and UBER HIGH PS TO NOT GET DODGED jousters.
Seen much jousters recently? Nope? That's the problem.
Lists are comprised of ace+turret; Ace+Turrets, Turrets, Aces, Aces+support
THE last jousters we still have are Crackswarm due to epic troll Crackshot is, and IGs, who have such low PS that even with VI they don't match the Ace level, so they still fight like jousters.
Rebel aces didn't kick up the power of aces, B-wings stayed BBBB despite all the struggle to make Farlander a monster.
Defenders are plainly put, jousters. High cost jousters.
Easily arcdodged. Outgunned by cheaper ones.
So FFG needed to solve at least 1 of those problems. They solved the second one.
Now we have cheaper-and-beefier title and title for "nope, you don't outgun me, little ones"
Still food for dodgers, although white-K helps great deal, it's SUPER PREDICTABLE
in casual level it might be small, but most ships out there have 1-2 ships, and most have standard-issue upgrades.
See a rebel-Y? Stress-TLT
See 1300? EU, Title, C3PO
See a Ceptor? AT, PTL, title Stealth
Naked generics, standard-issue Aces...
and 2\3 of pilot cards gather dust in the album. Good thing some Defender pilots are getting out of it to play now.
I'm not trying to tell people how to play; there's nothing wrong with using the Defender. But when a new player wants to know why a ship isn't used very often in competitive play, I think we owe it to them to give an honest appraisal of the situation (albeit the situation may improve when the Defender can shoot twice on the joust. Time will tell).
Submitting to the group think is the worse thing you can do to a new player. Just because something isn't easy, doesn't mean it can't be good. Not every ship is for everyone equally.
As I said in the initial announcement, Imperial Veterans = giving Biophysical unlimited power.
*rolls eyes*
Right. 'Group think'.
I'm assuming you meant Rexlar. Because Vessery is, hands down, THE Defender pilot.
No, I'm keeping Rex. Vessery is amazing if you have an efficient spotter, but in a 2-Defender list, the second Defender is only an efficient spotter against certain kinds of targets (big, fat things), which are not targets I've traditionally had trouble with using Defenders. PS8 for Rex is pretty meaningful, as there are a lot of quality PS8 aces. Even Steele's PS7 is meaningful. He trumps Vessery, which will matter, and he trumps non-VI Brobots, which also matter. I can go with VI on him, which makes him a useful PS9, or Predator, which is a less efficient, but far more flexible Vessery.
Rexler is my go to defender pilot, PTL with mk.ii was already strong now you can make him cheaper and give him evade he's gonna be even better 
I'm assuming you meant Rexlar. Because Vessery is, hands down, THE Defender pilot.
No, I'm keeping Rex. Vessery is amazing if you have an efficient spotter, but in a 2-Defender list, the second Defender is only an efficient spotter against certain kinds of targets (big, fat things), which are not targets I've traditionally had trouble with using Defenders. PS8 for Rex is pretty meaningful, as there are a lot of quality PS8 aces. Even Steele's PS7 is meaningful. He trumps Vessery, which will matter, and he trumps non-VI Brobots, which also matter. I can go with VI on him, which makes him a useful PS9, or Predator, which is a less efficient, but far more flexible Vessery.
The way I think of it is that Vessery doesn't synergize with a list but is demanding of it and that's what limits the flexibility that Biophysical mentions. Less flexibility in squad construction and less flexibility in in-game tactics. I think that people will be able to make very effective use of Vessery, but those lists will have links in the chain that can be broken more easily.