really, the greatest counter to hyper mitigation is guaranteed damage. My dice related paranoia means I've had basically 0 issue with palp aces beyond the skill of the player flying them

problem is we also have torpscouts, that counter hyper mitigation with gobs of dice but then end up countering everything else much harder instead

There almost needs to be a weapons or effect that caps the number of evade results that the defender can use in the compare results step. A ship could still throw around a two or three attack dice attack that has a decent chance of damaging high agility and mitigation ships without being particularly stronger against 1-2 agility ships .

Stop complaining about Soontir and his PTL, autothrusters, stealth device combo. FFG already released a hard counter to him, and it's called black market slicer tools.

I wouldn't really call that a "hard counter" so much as "a little extra help".

Vader Crew on a Decimator is a hard counter to Soontir. This is a potentially useful tool for ships that had no other potentially useful tools to bring.

Jousters NEVER countered turrets, that whole 3 pillar idea was flawed from the get go.

Part of the problem is that there were ships that were both turrets and high PS arc dodgers. It's kind of hard for rock to beat scissors when scissors can choose to be paper instead.

Are we calling a Falcon with an engine upgrade an arc dodger? If not, I'm curious to know which ship/s you were talking about that were PWT arc dodgers pre-wave 6 when AT came out.

Han, Dash, and RAC were all dodging arcs during Wave 5 thanks to Engine Upgrade.

PWTs are a problem yes, but you part a large premium for them. Han can arc dodge and still shoot, and yes that was really obnoxious. But, Han was designed to survive due to his hp, and not his agility. The variance boogie man didn't really scare Han all that much. He was designed with a pilot ability to help mitigate a bad roll on offense, and he has virtually no defensive dice to worry about defensive variance. Predator and C3P0 did a lot of bad for the rest of the field against Han, that reduced what little variance he had. But, Han was still vulnerable to swarms and he would still take copious amounts of damage when getting shot at by more than one ship. Fel doesn't have that problem. Fel's biggest weakness is getting blocked, but Palp can seriously help defend Fel even when he's been blocked.

I'm not really saying ATs are the problem. What I'm saying is that removing that much variance from otherwise high variance ships creates, in some situations, invincible ships. And that's a bad outcome.

really, the greatest counter to hyper mitigation is guaranteed damage. My dice related paranoia means I've had basically 0 issue with palp aces beyond the skill of the player flying them

problem is we also have torpscouts, that counter hyper mitigation with gobs of dice but then end up countering everything else much harder instead

There almost needs to be a weapons or effect that caps the number of evade results that the defender can use in the compare results step. A ship could still throw around a two or three attack dice attack that has a decent chance of damaging high agility and mitigation ships without being particularly stronger against 1-2 agility ships .

really awkward to implement

more simply, just introduce more gunner effects

reduces the impact of evade tokens and focus (either by attacking twice after they've been spent, or making your opponent take damage instead of another attack) but rarely triggers on low agility

Ok, nerf ATs if you make EU Small Ship Only .

I didn't reply to the TC thread because criticism and empirical evidence don't always go over very well. I get the problem of the combination of ATs, Soontir, and the Emperor, but I really don't think it's as prevalent or even close to what we had in the Phantom days. The data just doesn't support it as we're not seeing Palp aces dominate the field in the same way, even though I know the narrative has shifted in some podcasting circles.

If we look back at World's 2015, I think we'd see a pretty balanced field in the top 32 (outside of a reliance on new upgrade cards), certainly not one completely dominated by aces and two rebel lists making it to the finals. Palp has been available since that time in combination with Soontir. While I wouldn't mind seeing Palp brought back a bit, I think the problems are that a lot of possible counters and the tools they can bring (especially older ships) are further being depressed by Jumpmasters (in all sorts of variations).

I also think when people are talking about invincible ships, I think they're really referring to Soontir, who can have three tokens plus Palp. He's the one I see referred to most often. I've been an aces player for a long time, even before Palp and I only played Palp for a short while in conjunction with him, but they're getting to a point where they are unplayable without him because of all the tools to deal with them and I really think any change before seeing Wave 9 wouldn't be a good idea because PTL aces are going to struggle. I handily beat an ace list with a Firespray and 4 Zs, three with BMSTs.

If there were to be a Palp change, I'd prefer it be simply be degrading his effect by range. At R1-2 he can do what he does now but at 3 (and or beyond) he can only change a focus.

Please keep in mind, I'm not asking for this as a change to the game. I'm simply asking what people would have thought of Autothrusters and Palp if they had been originally created with what I've suggested.

really, the greatest counter to hyper mitigation is guaranteed damage. My dice related paranoia means I've had basically 0 issue with palp aces beyond the skill of the player flying them

problem is we also have torpscouts, that counter hyper mitigation with gobs of dice but then end up countering everything else much harder instead

There almost needs to be a weapons or effect that caps the number of evade results that the defender can use in the compare results step. A ship could still throw around a two or three attack dice attack that has a decent chance of damaging high agility and mitigation ships without being particularly stronger against 1-2 agility ships .

We got Plasma Torpedoes for this reason. I'm certain that PTs were invented to punish IG-88C and C3P0. High AG (or Theep) and High Shields is a very big problem, and I'm glad they gave us something to combat that. I don't consider complaints about unshielded ships with less than 5 Hull to be valid in this context. Soontir can practically kill himself from landing on a rock, there's no reason to design ordinance that is purpose built to kill a ship with 3 Hull, it's just absurd.

PWTs are a problem yes, but you part a large premium for them. Han can arc dodge and still shoot, and yes that was really obnoxious. But, Han was designed to survive due to his hp, and not his agility. The variance boogie man didn't really scare Han all that much. He was designed with a pilot ability to help mitigate a bad roll on offense, and he has virtually no defensive dice to worry about defensive variance. Predator and C3P0 did a lot of bad for the rest of the field against Han, that reduced what little variance he had. But, Han was still vulnerable to swarms and he would still take copious amounts of damage when getting shot at by more than one ship. Fel doesn't have that problem. Fel's biggest weakness is getting blocked, but Palp can seriously help defend Fel even when he's been blocked.

I'm not really saying ATs are the problem. What I'm saying is that removing that much variance from otherwise high variance ships creates, in some situations, invincible ships. And that's a bad outcome.

I really don't think well played Han was all that vulnerable to swarms, even well played ones. In 2014 at Worlds and in prep for it, I repeatedly saw top swarm players get dismantled by Han and unable to win with even a small mistake or two while Han could afford mistakes as long as they didn't put him inside the swarm's full compliment. Because of his wingmates and his own offense and damage mitigation, most swarms didn't have enough power to catch him once they'd lost a couple of ships. That point further became moot with Dash, who is a reason swarms will probably never come back in full.

Han+Predator+EU+R2D2+3PO+Title simply made it impossible for some ships to do any worthwhile damage or get enough shots on him to matter before he ripped up enough of a list, especially a low PS one and once he reached endgame was impossible to hurt unless you put your own ships in far more danger. I think this is actually where damage mitigation starting causing the spike we're seeing in attacks.

really, the greatest counter to hyper mitigation is guaranteed damage. My dice related paranoia means I've had basically 0 issue with palp aces beyond the skill of the player flying them

problem is we also have torpscouts, that counter hyper mitigation with gobs of dice but then end up countering everything else much harder instead

There almost needs to be a weapons or effect that caps the number of evade results that the defender can use in the compare results step. A ship could still throw around a two or three attack dice attack that has a decent chance of damaging high agility and mitigation ships without being particularly stronger against 1-2 agility ships .

We got Plasma Torpedoes for this reason. I'm certain that PTs were invented to punish IG-88C and C3P0. High AG (or Theep) and High Shields is a very big problem, and I'm glad they gave us something to combat that. I don't consider complaints about unshielded ships with less than 5 Hull to be valid in this context. Soontir can practically kill himself from landing on a rock, there's no reason to design ordinance that is purpose built to kill a ship with 3 Hull, it's just absurd.

How can Soontir kill himself on a rock? Just Palp away that hit from the rock.

really, the greatest counter to hyper mitigation is guaranteed damage. My dice related paranoia means I've had basically 0 issue with palp aces beyond the skill of the player flying them

problem is we also have torpscouts, that counter hyper mitigation with gobs of dice but then end up countering everything else much harder instead

There almost needs to be a weapons or effect that caps the number of evade results that the defender can use in the compare results step. A ship could still throw around a two or three attack dice attack that has a decent chance of damaging high agility and mitigation ships without being particularly stronger against 1-2 agility ships .

We got Plasma Torpedoes for this reason. I'm certain that PTs were invented to punish IG-88C and C3P0. High AG (or Theep) and High Shields is a very big problem, and I'm glad they gave us something to combat that. I don't consider complaints about unshielded ships with less than 5 Hull to be valid in this context. Soontir can practically kill himself from landing on a rock, there's no reason to design ordinance that is purpose built to kill a ship with 3 Hull, it's just absurd.

How can Soontir kill himself on a rock? Just Palp away that hit from the rock.

You do the math, buster.

really, the greatest counter to hyper mitigation is guaranteed damage. My dice related paranoia means I've had basically 0 issue with palp aces beyond the skill of the player flying them

problem is we also have torpscouts, that counter hyper mitigation with gobs of dice but then end up countering everything else much harder instead

There almost needs to be a weapons or effect that caps the number of evade results that the defender can use in the compare results step. A ship could still throw around a two or three attack dice attack that has a decent chance of damaging high agility and mitigation ships without being particularly stronger against 1-2 agility ships .

We got Plasma Torpedoes for this reason. I'm certain that PTs were invented to punish IG-88C and C3P0. High AG (or Theep) and High Shields is a very big problem, and I'm glad they gave us something to combat that. I don't consider complaints about unshielded ships with less than 5 Hull to be valid in this context. Soontir can practically kill himself from landing on a rock, there's no reason to design ordinance that is purpose built to kill a ship with 3 Hull, it's just absurd.

It's the huge amount of highly accurate damage needed to kill a ship with 3 hull that makes it rough to play 1-2 agility ships. Anything that lets you hit through high agility with low variance just eats up ships that don't have that level of mitigation.

Autothrusters should really have converted a focus result, rather than a blank (and perhaps been 1 point as a result). That would still have provided substantial benefit to the ships that needed it while not allowing the super-aces to stack defensive effects as effectively. Then AT ends up a little redundant with Poe, and Soontir becomes less wed to it since he is frequently sitting on more focus than he needs. Most critically, AT changing a focus result would lower the bar to actually hit Fel by one blank on his greens, which drops his to-hit from "almost impossible" to merely "very difficult."

heres the thing op

the ships people think of when you type jousters, suck at jousting. if it isnt a black crack or ordnance alpha it isnt worth the points you are paying to get arc dodged

also large base engine upgrade was a mistake

Most of the jousting lists have blocking which is the key play against turrets. I went on a murderer's row against turrets with a swarm last year and always won once I learned how to play that way. I saw it used very effectively with a crackswarm against my han list at regionals this year.

If you have 5-7 ships you have a lot of control to go with your firepower.

Just no

So I was discussing a Miranda alpha strike with my buddy the other night. The debate was over whether the 1 pt for Homing Missiles was worth it over concussion missiles. Now with Miranda's ability, they're both going to be rolling 5 dice, w/ TL+F (but no GCs).

Think of this for a second... If you roll a 5 hit concussion missile on Fel @ R3, you require him to blank on 3 of his 4 dice in order to actually hit the guy. He's guaranteed 1 evade via token, 1 evade via AT, and 1 evade via Palpatine. So, what are the odds of him blanking on at least 3 dice? .25 ^ 3 * .75 * 4 + .25^4 = 4.6% of 3 blanks, and .4% of 4 blanks, for a 5% chance total to DO A DAMAGE.

And this is spending 4 points for concussion missiles, points for Miranda's ability, and a shield to throw a 5th die... And assuming that you're getting all 5 hits. If that doesn't seem like a problem to anyone else, then I don't know what a problem is.

I ended up winning the argument that HM was worth the 1 point so you can prevent Fel's evade token, making it actually doable to hit the guy.

As someone stated earlier in this topic, perhaps there needs to be a ruling or a condition or something that says that you cannot evade more than your total agility. But I suppose it would have to be a condition or something (instead of a rule) since it would negatively affect ships such as the Ghost that can naturally take the evade action (but could never spend said evade).

there is a ruling or condition

it's called homing missiles

you've already discovered em

there is a ruling or condition

it's called homing missiles

you've already discovered em

Great... so the counter to Fel is to bring a ship capable of equipping LRS so you can get a TL on him, and then hope that you get all 4 hits out of it (because unless you're Miranda or backed by Jan, that's the most you can get), and then if you get all 4 hits, PRAY that Fel gets at least 3/4 blanks, because Palp and AT change two of them... So once again... YOU HAVE A 5% CHANCE of doing damage... Assuming you get all 4 hits on your HM. Hardly a counter.

So I was discussing a Miranda alpha strike with my buddy the other night. The debate was over whether the 1 pt for Homing Missiles was worth it over concussion missiles. Now with Miranda's ability, they're both going to be rolling 5 dice, w/ TL+F (but no GCs).

Think of this for a second... If you roll a 5 hit concussion missile on Fel @ R3, you require him to blank on 3 of his 4 dice in order to actually hit the guy. He's guaranteed 1 evade via token, 1 evade via AT, and 1 evade via Palpatine. So, what are the odds of him blanking on at least 3 dice? .25 ^ 3 * .75 * 4 + .25^4 = 4.6% of 3 blanks, and .4% of 4 blanks, for a 5% chance total to DO A DAMAGE.

And this is spending 4 points for concussion missiles, points for Miranda's ability, and a shield to throw a 5th die... And assuming that you're getting all 5 hits. If that doesn't seem like a problem to anyone else, then I don't know what a problem is.

I ended up winning the argument that HM was worth the 1 point so you can prevent Fel's evade token, making it actually doable to hit the guy.

As someone stated earlier in this topic, perhaps there needs to be a ruling or a condition or something that says that you cannot evade more than your total agility. But I suppose it would have to be a condition or something (instead of a rule) since it would negatively affect ships such as the Ghost that can naturally take the evade action (but could never spend said evade).

I had a friend use my Advanced Proton Torpedo Dengaroo variant against my Palp Aces squad. Like an idiot, I park my Vessery in range one of Dengar.

He scores 5 hits with APT's. APT's are always 5 hits when you have a focus to modify with.

I have focus, evade, Palpatine, and Stealth Device on Vessery.

My original roll was blank blank focus evade. He Zuckuss's the non-blanks, same result. I spend all of my tokens and Palpatine and end up taking a single plink damage. At this point my opponent had steam coming out of his ears.

Imperial player greed knows no bounds. "You just have to mass fire against Palp Aces, of course he's going to dodge one high value attack! git gud" is what I was told when I first relayed this story.

Remember when they were legitimately arguing that the stresshog was OP because it was too easy to use, inexpensive, and an autoinclude?

there is a ruling or condition

it's called homing missiles

you've already discovered em

Great... so the counter to Fel is to bring a ship capable of equipping LRS so you can get a TL on him, and then hope that you get all 4 hits out of it (because unless you're Miranda or backed by Jan, that's the most you can get), and then if you get all 4 hits, PRAY that Fel gets at least 3/4 blanks, because Palp and AT change two of them... So once again... YOU HAVE A 5% CHANCE of doing damage... Assuming you get all 4 hits on your HM. Hardly a counter.

no, the counter to Fel is guaranteed damage

homing missile is the counter to evading more than your total agility, ala evade token

So I was discussing a Miranda alpha strike with my buddy the other night. The debate was over whether the 1 pt for Homing Missiles was worth it over concussion missiles. Now with Miranda's ability, they're both going to be rolling 5 dice, w/ TL+F (but no GCs).

Think of this for a second... If you roll a 5 hit concussion missile on Fel @ R3, you require him to blank on 3 of his 4 dice in order to actually hit the guy. He's guaranteed 1 evade via token, 1 evade via AT, and 1 evade via Palpatine. So, what are the odds of him blanking on at least 3 dice? .25 ^ 3 * .75 * 4 + .25^4 = 4.6% of 3 blanks, and .4% of 4 blanks, for a 5% chance total to DO A DAMAGE.

And this is spending 4 points for concussion missiles, points for Miranda's ability, and a shield to throw a 5th die... And assuming that you're getting all 5 hits. If that doesn't seem like a problem to anyone else, then I don't know what a problem is.

I ended up winning the argument that HM was worth the 1 point so you can prevent Fel's evade token, making it actually doable to hit the guy.

As someone stated earlier in this topic, perhaps there needs to be a ruling or a condition or something that says that you cannot evade more than your total agility. But I suppose it would have to be a condition or something (instead of a rule) since it would negatively affect ships such as the Ghost that can naturally take the evade action (but could never spend said evade).

This is why you bring Jan Ors as Miranda's wingman. The Homing Missile's ability to reroll AND negate an evade was what killed Fel in a single shot.

This was before Chimps as well.