Recon Specialist sucks on Whisper. If you use gunner it guarantees that you hit with FCS, so you end up with an additional focus token from Whisper's ability. Paying the extra 2 points for gunner nets you the benefits of Recon Specialist on Whisper in addition to the crazy FCS Gunner brokenness and the defensive bonus of simply deleting something before it can fire back.

Uhh...

Recon Spec Whisper has nothing to do with Buzzsaw Whisper, so I have no idea why you're bringing it up.

One's heavily defensive, and one's heavily offensive.

Still, FCS + Gunner is the same cost as Sensor Jammer + Recon Spec, so that much is salient to the conversation (even if it dies faster).

Buzzsaw is better vs other Aces, and much much worse vs TLTs and other ships with 1 or fewer agility.

Recon Specialist sucks on Whisper. If you use gunner it guarantees that you hit with FCS, so you end up with an additional focus token from Whisper's ability. Paying the extra 2 points for gunner nets you the benefits of Recon Specialist on Whisper in addition to the crazy FCS Gunner brokenness and the defensive bonus of simply deleting something before it can fire back.

Uhh...

Recon Spec Whisper has nothing to do with Buzzsaw Whisper, so I have no idea why you're bringing it up.

One's heavily defensive, and one's heavily offensive.

Still, FCS + Gunner is the same cost as Sensor Jammer + Recon Spec, so that much is salient to the conversation (even if it dies faster).

Buzzsaw is better vs other Aces, and much much worse vs TLTs and other ships with 1 or fewer agility.

My argument is that the Buzzsaw variant is the best defensive loadout in general.

...How?

​It only adds damage. Mitigation is left to your one action for the round.

Recon Specialist sucks on Whisper. If you use gunner it guarantees that you hit with FCS, so you end up with an additional focus token from Whisper's ability. Paying the extra 2 points for gunner nets you the benefits of Recon Specialist on Whisper in addition to the crazy FCS Gunner brokenness and the defensive bonus of simply deleting something before it can fire back.

Uhh...

Recon Spec Whisper has nothing to do with Buzzsaw Whisper, so I have no idea why you're bringing it up.

One's heavily defensive, and one's heavily offensive.

Still, FCS + Gunner is the same cost as Sensor Jammer + Recon Spec, so that much is salient to the conversation (even if it dies faster).

Buzzsaw is better vs other Aces, and much much worse vs TLTs and other ships with 1 or fewer agility.

Recon Specialist sucks on Whisper. If you use gunner it guarantees that you hit with FCS, so you end up with an additional focus token from Whisper's ability. Paying the extra 2 points for gunner nets you the benefits of Recon Specialist on Whisper in addition to the crazy FCS Gunner brokenness and the defensive bonus of simply deleting something before it can fire back.

Uhh...

Recon Spec Whisper has nothing to do with Buzzsaw Whisper, so I have no idea why you're bringing it up.

One's heavily defensive, and one's heavily offensive.

Still, FCS + Gunner is the same cost as Sensor Jammer + Recon Spec, so that much is salient to the conversation (even if it dies faster).

Buzzsaw is better vs other Aces, and much much worse vs TLTs and other ships with 1 or fewer agility.

My argument is that the Buzzsaw variant is the best defensive loadout in general.

...How?

​It only adds damage. Mitigation is left to your one action for the round.

Mitigation is left to your 2 actions because you guaranteed that you triggered Whisper's free focus.

Let me also add that the ability to drop a range 1 5 die attack backed by FCS and Gunner on something is also a pretty good defensive ability.

Having a reliable Soontir killer is more important than having 3 focus tokens instead 2 unless literally all you ever faced was quad TLT.

My argument is that the Buzzsaw variant is the best defensive loadout in general.

...How?

​It only adds damage. Mitigation is left to your one action for the round.

I think he's presenting his usual 2+2 = 37 argument. He's right that additional tokens in a stack are often (but by no means always) subject to diminishing returns, so I agree that there are better choices than Recon Specialist for Whisper.

Then he jumps somehow from there to the Buzzsaw spec. Maybe he's simply leaning on the tired "offense is the best defense" cliche? Or maybe he forgot that Whisper's pilot ability is only triggered once per round regardless of whether she has a Gunner.

My argument is that the Buzzsaw variant is the best defensive loadout in general.

...How?

​It only adds damage. Mitigation is left to your one action for the round.

...you know, the only way someone who has PGS blocked can see his posts is when someone quotes him.

I think he's presenting his usual 2+2 = 37 argument. He's right that additional tokens in a stack are often (but by no means always) subject to diminishing returns, so I agree that there are better choices than Recon Specialist for Whisper.

Then he jumps somehow from there to the Buzzsaw spec. Maybe he's simply leaning on the tired "offense is the best defense" cliche? Or maybe he forgot that Whisper's pilot ability is only triggered once per round regardless of whether she has a Gunner.

Whisper doesn't get a token for attacking. Whisper gets a token for hitting. I think the point that is being made is that a Buzzsaw Whisper will almost always get the token from Whisper's ability while a Recon Specialist Whisper may end up not hitting.

My argument is that the Buzzsaw variant is the best defensive loadout in general.

...How?

​It only adds damage. Mitigation is left to your one action for the round.

...you know, the only way someone who has PGS blocked can see his posts is when someone quotes him.

I think he's presenting his usual 2+2 = 37 argument. He's right that additional tokens in a stack are often (but by no means always) subject to diminishing returns, so I agree that there are better choices than Recon Specialist for Whisper.

Then he jumps somehow from there to the Buzzsaw spec. Maybe he's simply leaning on the tired "offense is the best defense" cliche? Or maybe he forgot that Whisper's pilot ability is only triggered once per round regardless of whether she has a Gunner.

Whisper doesn't get a token for attacking. Whisper gets a token for hitting. I think the point that is being made is that a Buzzsaw Whisper will almost always get the token from Whisper's ability while a Recon Specialist Whisper may end up not hitting.

But the Buzzsaw relies on the idea of optimizing the case where you miss your first shot--and with 4-5 dice and at least one way to modify your dice, that's just not all that likely. Basically the only ship you're really worried about is Soontir Fel with Stealth Device and a focus/focus/evade stack, and while that's not a trivial consideration, I don't think it's enough for someone to declare that FCS/Gunner is objectively the best defensive setup.

My argument is that the Buzzsaw variant is the best defensive loadout in general.

...How?

​It only adds damage. Mitigation is left to your one action for the round.

...you know, the only way someone who has PGS blocked can see his posts is when someone quotes him.

I think he's presenting his usual 2+2 = 37 argument. He's right that additional tokens in a stack are often (but by no means always) subject to diminishing returns, so I agree that there are better choices than Recon Specialist for Whisper.

Then he jumps somehow from there to the Buzzsaw spec. Maybe he's simply leaning on the tired "offense is the best defense" cliche? Or maybe he forgot that Whisper's pilot ability is only triggered once per round regardless of whether she has a Gunner.

Whisper doesn't get a token for attacking. Whisper gets a token for hitting. I think the point that is being made is that a Buzzsaw Whisper will almost always get the token from Whisper's ability while a Recon Specialist Whisper may end up not hitting.

But the Buzzsaw relies on the idea of optimizing the case where you miss your first shot--and with 4-5 dice and at least one way to modify your dice, that's just not all that likely. Basically the only ship you're really worried about is Soontir Fel with Stealth Device and a focus/focus/evade stack, and while that's not a trivial consideration, I don't think it's enough for someone to declare that FCS/Gunner is objectively the best defensive setup.

Whisper does miss. Not just against Soontir either.

Also yes, the only ship I am worried about is Soontir Fel. Every attack that is thrown at him, even good 4/4 hit ones have a chance to be dodged and it doesn't take an incredible amount of luck for that to happen, just something like evade evade focus blank. You need to consistently max out those 4 dice and having gunner to get 2 of those a turn, the first of which may strip tokens for the second is huge.

Considering that Soontir is in every Imperial squad I see pretty much, it's not a trivial concern. Even ignoring Soontir, 4 dice attacks miss. FCS is good on a Phantom but it's even better if you can immediately make use of it with Gunner.

Also: Omega Leader. One way to cheat his ability is to simply fire twice, gunner acts as a psuedo-modification.

Quad TLT or Danger Zone or other 1 agility lists are not common enough to make Rec Spec a better choice than Gunner.

Scenario 1: Rec Spec Whisper.

You choose Focus as your action, giving you 2 Focus tokens. You roll 2 hits 2 blanks and miss.

Scenario 2: Gunner FCS Whisper

You choose Focus as your action, giving you a 'mere' one Focus token. You roll 2 hits 2 blanks and miss. You acquire a TL from FCS. You roll 3 hits and a blank, and you 'spend' the FCS lock and get a 4th hit. You hit with this attack and you now have 2 focus tokens.

That's all very different from the claim you actually made, which was that Buzzsaw Whisper is the "best defensive loadout". Even if I accepted your contrived example as a conclusive demonstration, all you would have proven is that FCS+Gunner is as good as Recon Specialist on defense. The end state of both scenarios is a cloaked Whisper with two focus tokens: FCS+Gunner is stronger offensively, but that's only relevant to defense on the turns where you kill a lower-PS opponent who would otherwise have been able to attack you.

Where the Buzzsaw shines most is in the action economy: against most targets you spend your action to evade, relying on Gunner to essentially "fix" the disadvantageous timing of the FCS lock. That way, you end your activation cloaked with a focus/evade stack, which is actually better than double focus. But of course it should be better, since you're paying 4 more points than the Recon Specialist version does.

And if we're going to ignore cost and context, as you implicitly are, I can come up with better defensive loadouts. If you keep cost and context intact, then the definition of "best" has to consider efficiency as well as effectiveness under a range of assumptions about the opposing force and the game state. You can't have it both ways.

Finally, I'll tip my hat to your trolling: you've managed to yank the thread completely off the topic of "Kallus or Tactician," and even off the broader topic of good Whisper builds. Instead, we're arguing about whether there's any rationale for departing from your narrowly defined "best" build. So... well done?

captive so everyone shooting at you takes stress. Veteran instincts, moving later and shooting earlier helps. Free cooking after you fire is always nice.

Oh and power control so you get a target lock on the enemy

Free cloaking. ..

fire control. ...

**** spell check..