I keep forgetting Wing Gundark is a pilot...

I have to agree with Fickle though, Ibis pays 4 points for 2 PS (something veteran instincts gives you for 1 pt.) and a worse version of wired (which costs 1 point as well) there's little to no reason to play her.

Oh! And on the Colzet topic: I saw at a Colzet at a store championship flip "blinded pilot" on an Aggressor for 4 turns in a row while the rest of his squad focused on the other ship. It was so mean.

But you cant have both wired AND vet instincts! so clearly thats worth the bloated price ... right?

Zeta Ace has an EPT slot. I've run him with PTL to be able to use his crazy roll and still focus, but he's too expensive that way for his piddly 2 dice attack.

I used to run Night Beast quite a lot. Usually he gets no upgrade and is pretty good for his points, but he's now overshadowed by Black Squadron with Crack Shot.

I don't really get why Zeta Ace doesn't get used. Omega Squadron Pilots are decent, you occasionally see them, Zeta Ace is exactly the same, but he gets +1PS and an optional long Barrel Roll for 1 point. I understand sometimes you don't have the point, but that ability and PS are worth a point if you've got the point.

But you cant have both wired AND vet instincts! so clearly thats worth the bloated price ... right?

it's not as baffling as some other pilots

hell, I'd understand the bloat given it was wave 3

Esege , though!? +2 PS for +3 points. Miranda's only a point more for 2 PS and an incredible ability, while Esege is stuck with horrible jank support that would make Dutch shake his head in disappointment

and he's Wave 7!

wow i didnt even notice hes 1pt different. Technically thats accurate for VI but since when is printed stats the same cost as upgrade stats?

I guess they thought the focus sharing potential was more powerful than it is. I cant even think of a situation i'd want that unless im trying to pull off an adv proton torps somewhere lol.

I was just thinking about using Kir and Lorrir in a build, but it seems so hard as they're terribly overpriced. When I first started out playing, I used Lorrir (not really knowing how to play the game) and I didn't use his skill once. LOL

Backstabber and Dark Curse are still very viable in my opinion. Decently priced.

A lot of people have responded about how many rebel pilots (and some imperial pilots) would be insane with an EPT (like Hera at PS 9). My intention in posting this discussion was not to question why all named pilots don't have ept's, just why some of them (with less powerful abilities) don't and how that could be fixed. Either with an ept or some other upgrade.

I am not sure how many Rebel pilots really need fixing since they have the ept droid and droids in general but buddyfett gave a good list of Imperial pilots that could use help.

This is cute, those are the good ones. The B team pilots, the ones that are almost good.

What about:

Col. Jendon

Alozen

Z Storm

Winged gundark

Night beast

Fel's wrath

Kanos

Cowell

Zeta ace

Etc.

Anyone use these pilots often? If not maybe they should get some fix.

That's my point. You only named pilots that actually get some use.

one of the sad things about my local group is i seem to be the only one that fields odd lists using less known pilots. I dont see palpaces uboats or crackswarms casually but i still see Vader, Dengar, or Whisper everywhere. Dengar is usually accompanied by Guri for some reason lol.

Dark Curse used to be one of my favorite pilots in the game. Mostly because he was annoying to fly against and whenever his ability would screw over my opponent I could shout DARK CURSE!

i still love running dark curse. Hes rarely seen these days so nobody remembers his ability and completely screw themselves over by targetlocking him and stacking tokens to take him out if one of my more important ships arent in arc. Its even more hilarious when its a Uboat trying to deadeye him (cant spend that focus!). People flip out when they realize they just screwed over their own actions lol

i still love running dark curse. Hes rarely seen these days so nobody remembers his ability and completely screw themselves over by targetlocking him and stacking tokens to take him out if one of my more important ships arent in arc. Its even more hilarious when its a Uboat trying to deadeye him (cant spend that focus!). People flip out when they realize they just screwed over their own actions lol

The rules changes in the TFA core changed the timing of firing and spending focus tokens to launch ordnance. Now you spend the focus before declaring a target and you can spend a deadeye focus to shoot ordnance at Curse. It's spelled out in the FAQ.

Similarly in the old rules, Night Beast couldn't get his free focus if he was stressed at the start of the turn. Now he can.

not to mention that, even if they couldn't spend focus to torp curse, they could always do it with a TL

just no allowed to re-roll attack dice on him; can spend TLs at will (and then chip + proton mods)

the point of it was he does his normal thing and forgets his target. Since its not a unique ship model people just see a random TIE and go "Oh, academy/black pilot" lol.

And thats kinda dumb that if you have deadeye you declare you use missiles before declaring a target. Cant do that with TL because you cant use the TL unless you have one on the target.

But that's what deadeye does, it frees you from the limitations of the target lock. Dark Curse used to be immune to blaster turrets too. Now he's not again because of when that focus gets spent.

But that's what deadeye does, it frees you from the limitations of the target lock. Dark Curse used to be immune to blaster turrets too. Now he's not again because of when that focus gets spent.

Serious question: why can Deadeye trigger R4 Agromech, then? If the Focus is spent before a target is declared, then it's not getting spent as part of the attack, and therefore shouldn't be able to trigger R4 Agromech

Because the moment you declare you are using a weapon, you are "attacking" - you spend a focus with deadeye to activate the attack, thus you spent the focus while attacking. "While Attacking" doesnt have a specific point where that wording applies, its literally the entire sequence from declare target to resolve damage.

I looked up the FAQ btw. It doesnt act the way you described, it just says Dark Curse may be the target of an ability that requires spending a focus to activate. It doesnt say anything about when the focus is used, it just denies his ability. Which is still kinda ass since its not like Dark Curse is going to be an anti-uboat meta breaker even if it did deny it lol... "ok..acquiring targetlock instead of getting a focus... he's still gonna die" lol

Because the moment you declare you are using a weapon, you are "attacking" - you spend a focus with deadeye to activate the attack, thus you spent the focus while attacking. "While Attacking" doesnt have a specific point where that wording applies, its literally the entire sequence from declare target to resolve damage.

I looked up the FAQ btw. It doesnt act the way you described, it just says Dark Curse may be the target of an ability that requires spending a focus to activate. It doesnt say anything about when the focus is used, it just denies his ability. Which is still kinda ass since its not like Dark Curse is going to be an anti-uboat meta breaker even if it did deny it lol... "ok..acquiring targetlock instead of getting a focus... he's still gonna die" lol

The bolded is actually why I asked that question, because that was my understanding. But we just established that the focus is happening pre-declaration.

Oh well. Still think you could fix any combo issues with an FAQ that doesn't trigger Agromech off of Deadeye, but whatever.

Old FAQ from 24 July 15:

“Dark Curse” cannot be the target of a
secondary weapon attack that requires the
attacker to spend a focus token."

More recent FAQ from 21 December 15 (unchanged subsequently):

“Dark Curse” can be the target of a secondary
weapon attack that requires the attacker to
spend a focus token.

Why make the change? Did they just change their minds? No. The underlying rules that led to the earlier FAQ entry changed. Specifically the attack sequence. The new rules reference has you select a weapon and target and spend all the costs before the target becomes the defender:

ATTACK
A ship can perform one attack when it becomes the
active ship during the Combat phase. To perform an
attack, the ship resolves the following steps in order:

1. Declare Target: The attacker may measure
range to any number of enemy ships and check
which enemy ships are inside his firing arc. Then
the attacker chooses one of his weapons to
attack with. Then he chooses one enemy ship to
be the target and pays any costs required for the
attack.

....

After a valid weapon and target are chosen
and any indicated costs are paid, the target is
considered to be the defender.

Since Dark Curse's ability is "when defending..." he can't stop the focus being spent because he's not the defender yet.

Sounds like a case of rule tweaking to benefit the same person in both ways to me.

I know for a fact people trigger R4 off spending a focus for Deadeye, but if thats correct that they do it before declaring a target then thats impossible since you have no target for R4 to trigger onto.

If it gets around Dark Curse's ability as well as a few other things in the game (cant think of them off hand i know they exist) preventing such a thing if you had to declare the target BEFORE the focus spend, then it cant proc R4.

It simply CANNOT work both ways even though its being played that way.

Rules forum hoooo!!!

edit: Yup this is a case of the rules benefiting the same player in both circumstances. Its in the FAQ for R4 that if he spends a focus to activate a weapon he may acquire the TL on the target.

That is seriously bull. Double-benefit out of the same circumstance, when the fix for one breaks another so another fix fixes the break instead of leaving it broken, considering it makes complete sense with the original fix in mind to be broken. Especially since uboat lists are such an issue right now, this would put a slight hamper on them if they used R4.

Would make way more sense to leave it completely alone. Oh no a single pilot is immune to a single turret nobody uses and a 1pt EPT the game is broken!! except its a tie fighter...

Kir would probably see instant play. Laetin, Graz, and Lorrir- Maybe. Sees like thier true goal is to have 1 scrubby named pilot for fluff purposes rather than all good named pilots. Guri and deathfire and Deathrain are all great examples of mid-tier PS pilots that have strong enough abilities to compete. Let's hope we see more of those.

My Fix for Interceptors in Campaign play:

Royal Guard Training. 0pt, EPT- PS4-6 only. you must equip the royal guard title and fill both mod slots. Your upgrade bar gains the EPT slot. You may take an additional EPT.

I think interceptors with Tech slots would be great. I don't see that happening: Soontir and Jax would be even more auto-include.

Sounds like a case of rule tweaking to benefit the same person in both ways to me.

I know for a fact people trigger R4 off spending a focus for Deadeye, but if thats correct that they do it before declaring a target then thats impossible since you have no target for R4 to trigger onto.

If it gets around Dark Curse's ability as well as a few other things in the game (cant think of them off hand i know they exist) preventing such a thing if you had to declare the target BEFORE the focus spend, then it cant proc R4.

It simply CANNOT work both ways even though its being played that way.

Rules forum hoooo!!!

I edited my post. It's not before he becomes a target, it's before he becomes the defender. My bad.

Sounds like a case of rule tweaking to benefit the same person in both ways to me.

I know for a fact people trigger R4 off spending a focus for Deadeye, but if thats correct that they do it before declaring a target then thats impossible since you have no target for R4 to trigger onto.

If it gets around Dark Curse's ability as well as a few other things in the game (cant think of them off hand i know they exist) preventing such a thing if you had to declare the target BEFORE the focus spend, then it cant proc R4.

It simply CANNOT work both ways even though its being played that way.

Rules forum hoooo!!!

Boom. Totally being played both ways right now, and I think the FAQ unfortunately HAS it being played both ways (Agromech specifically being allowed to play off of Blaster Turret or Deadeye). That shouldn't be the case.

Sounds like a case of rule tweaking to benefit the same person in both ways to me.

I know for a fact people trigger R4 off spending a focus for Deadeye, but if thats correct that they do it before declaring a target then thats impossible since you have no target for R4 to trigger onto.

If it gets around Dark Curse's ability as well as a few other things in the game (cant think of them off hand i know they exist) preventing such a thing if you had to declare the target BEFORE the focus spend, then it cant proc R4.

It simply CANNOT work both ways even though its being played that way.

Rules forum hoooo!!!

I edited my post. It's not before he becomes a target, it's before he becomes the defender. My bad.

Ahhh. I think the rub is the lack of the word "immediately" in the card text. After leaves it open-ended, whereas immediately after would not, for R4 Agromech purposes.