I think Vaapad was invented because it was Samuarl L ****ing Jackson, I mean the guy wanted a purple lightsaber. XD I feel that the techniques are more a frame of mind then a strictly defined set of guidelines.

Personally I feel we already have viaapad in Hawk Bat Swoop in tat you can spend Force Pips to stack advantages on an attack like a champ, meaning you can overpower people like a champion with sheer advantage generation to reduce the number of actions they have. This may well be described as drawing on the emotions and I feel that Vaapad as an aside to Juro may act in much the same way; you spend pips and you can generate advantages or do something stated.

Actually, I'd say that Shii-Cho Knight's Sarlacc Sweep covers a fair bit of Vaapad's ability to hit multiple times in succession, only said talent limits you to one hit per target but otherwise operates as per the auto-fire rules, as does Saber Swarm in regards to being able to hit one foe multiple times.

Perhaps the actual Vaapad talent (if there is such a thing) would allow the PC to simply grant their lightsaber the auto-fire quality, with the player able to choose where the extra hits go, be it the same target or multiple targets. It might even be a capstone talent that's nestled deep in the 5th Row (not unlike Force Rating is for Niman Disciple), and allows the PC to add their Force Rating to the Lightsaber combat check to generate additional successes on the check. This would be in addition to it being a Conflict talent as the PC has to tap into the dark side in order to bolster their combat prowess.

What about making it a higher-tier talent or power that requires both a light side AND a dark side point to activate? It's a design concept not yet used in the game, I think.

Maybe for good reason? Could be there are immediate problems with this.

21 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

What about making it a higher-tier talent or power that requires both a light side AND a dark side point to activate? It's a design concept not yet used in the game, I think.

Maybe for good reason? Could be there are immediate problems with this.

Problem there is five of the six Form specs don't give the character an opportunity to increase their Force Rating, and with a single Force die you either get light pips or dark pips, not both. And the Vaapad talent should be something that can be used by a character whose only spec is Juyo Form, and thus is likely to only have a Force Rating of 1.

19 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Problem there is five of the six Form specs don't give the character an opportunity to increase their Force Rating, and with a single Force die you either get light pips or dark pips, not both. And the Vaapad talent should be something that can be used by a character whose only spec is Juyo Form, and thus is likely to only have a Force Rating of 1.

True.

Hm. What if it lets you treat some specific other result on a die as a dark pip when you roll your special Vaapad Lightsaber (characteristic) + Force Rating attack action? It would need additional limitation/cost. Spend a Destiny Point to do it? Double Conflict from using the black pip?

A tiny bit like the Triumphs = extra Successes talents.

On 4/23/2017 at 8:53 AM, Donovan Morningfire said:

Problem there is five of the six Form specs don't give the character an opportunity to increase their Force Rating, and with a single Force die you either get light pips or dark pips, not both. And the Vaapad talent should be something that can be used by a character whose only spec is Juyo Form, and thus is likely to only have a Force Rating of 1.

Vapaad would not be a good starting spec fluff wise anyway. So it would make sense to require both light and dark.

Isn't Juyo supposed to be the dual wielding form? It would be nice to have the lightsaber versions of the gunslinger skills.

10 minutes ago, Ziro said:

Isn't Juyo supposed to be the dual wielding form? It would be nice to have the lightsaber versions of the gunslinger skills.

That's Jar'Kai. Technically not a lightsaber form.

2 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Vapaad would not be a good starting spec fluff wise anyway. So it would make sense to require both light and dark.

Except that Vaapad is and of itself an extension of Juyo, which could itself be a starting spec much like Shii-Cho, Makashi, Soresu, Ataru, Shien/Djem So, and Niman are.

And while Juyo wasn't widely practiced during the prequel eras due to the elder members of Jedi Order deeming it too unstable and/or drawing too much on a dark side mindset (Juyo requires the user to not only embrace but to enjoy the fight), that doesn't mean there weren't students of Form VII that never came within sniffing distance of Mace's customized Vaapad variant.

18 minutes ago, Ziro said:

Isn't Juyo supposed to be the dual wielding form? It would be nice to have the lightsaber versions of the gunslinger skills.

7 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

That's Jar'Kai. Technically not a lightsaber form.

Jar'Kai is (as of current state of things) less of separate Lightsaber Form (or at least isn't considered one of the Classic Seven) and is more a series of techniques that focus on dual-wielding lightsabers, with variants of Jar'Kai existing for each Form, such as the Ataru-based version that Anakin briefly employed against Dooku as well as the more common Niman-based version and Ahsoka usage of a Shien-based version.

Then you've got Asajj Ventress, who at least going by her canon-only article on Wookieepedia only knew Jar'Kai, though I suspect she used a blending of Makashi and Niman as the foundation of her lightsaber combat techniques.

So it might just be possible that FFG will opt to create a Jar'Kai-focused specialization, offering new talents that enhance dual-wielding capabilities the way that Gunslinger does while also offering a couple ranks each of Parry and Reflect.

4 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Except that Vaapad is and of itself an extension of Juyo, which could itself be a starting spec much like Shii-Cho, Makashi, Soresu, Ataru, Shien/Djem So, and Niman are.

And while Juyo wasn't widely practiced during the prequel eras due to the elder members of Jedi Order deeming it too unstable and/or drawing too much on a dark side mindset (Juyo requires the user to not only embrace but to enjoy the fight), that doesn't mean there weren't students of Form VII that never came within sniffing distance of Mace's customized Vaapad variant.

Which is why i don't think a talent requiring both light and darkside expendeture makes sense to me as It would be a spec that would be taken later as opposed to earlier.

I think the idea of having one or more talents that works differently depending on if the wielder uses dark or light points could work. It would certainly give the form a unique flare that the others don't have. It would also null the need for Juyo/Vaapad to have a conflict talent, as the onus is upon the character to choose to the dark path or not.

I believe Vaapad also worked by turning the target's darkness against them, so a talent that works similar to Suppress' control upgrade that inflicts strain equal to the number of dark points the target uses could work as well.

I really hope thats the path they take, LS does this while DS does that. The DS option should be the super aggressive approach, perhaps along the lines of adding 2 damage per point(not success). Meanwhile the LS option could focus on using the enemy against themselves, forcing them to suffer Strain to use Force Points seems like a good option.

I see juyo/vapaad as being a bit like the shi-cho knight spec, in that it doesn't hAve any attributexperience dpendent talents. I'd say 4 ranks of parry, improved parry, 2 ranks of reflect, a couple of lethal blows, at least one toughened and at least one grit, some sort of vapaad talent that I voles rolling a force die for a pip color dependent benefit, followed by comitting the force die to maintain the benefit, a copy or two of confidence. It may have the crippling blow talent. Of course a dedication

I'm not sure we will see Vaapad, the reason I believe this is that we have the guardian / seeker / sentinel and know the specs from the consular book, which leaves two books left , mystic and warrior, and I don't think that it makes sense to put it in the mystic book. Thus far we have only 1 spec per career with a conflict talent, and the warrior already has the aggressor, I personally think that they wont add another , this would lead me to believe that they may have Juyo in the warrior book ,but Vaapad, because it was so niche might not be in the books at all because of how few there are that used it , and I don't think that it will be a style that doesn't have a conflict talent.

The thing is I could equally be completely wrong, because so far each career also seems balanced in that they each appear to have a lightsaber hybrid spec to each of them, Sentry for Sentinel , Arbiter for Consular, then you see Seeker has none and the Guardian has two (armorer and protector). So I'm not sure that they are following this symmetry exactly, given this I believe that Juyo will be there, but if Vaapad is, it will be either a talent or section of the tree. So we could end up with the mystic career with no conflict talent , and leave the Warrior with two.

Lastly all the above is conjecture, but I'm guessing we will know before the year is done.

8 minutes ago, syrath said:

I'm not sure we will see Vaapad, the reason I believe this is that we have the guardian / seeker / sentinel and know the specs from the consular book, which leaves two books left , mystic and warrior, and I don't think that it makes sense to put it in the mystic book. Thus far we have only 1 spec per career with a conflict talent, and the warrior already has the aggressor, I personally think that they wont add another , this would lead me to believe that they may have Juyo in the warrior book ,but Vaapad, because it was so niche might not be in the books at all because of how few there are that used it , and I don't think that it will be a style that doesn't have a conflict talent.

The thing is I could equally be completely wrong, because so far each career also seems balanced in that they each appear to have a lightsaber hybrid spec to each of them, Sentry for Sentinel , Arbiter for Consular, then you see Seeker has none and the Guardian has two (armorer and protector). So I'm not sure that they are following this symmetry exactly, given this I believe that Juyo will be there, but if Vaapad is, it will be either a talent or section of the tree. So we could end up with the mystic career with no conflict talent , and leave the Warrior with two.

Lastly all the above is conjecture, but I'm guessing we will know before the year is done.

I think Juyo will be the specialization and vaapad will be a single talent in it, it might not be a conflict talent per se but you get a benefit which may depend on the color of force pip you use, and BY SPENDING DARK PIPS not for using the talent, you could get conflict.

I'm thinking something like

look at makashi duelist, strip out resist disarm, makashi technique/flourish/finish, one rank of parry , sum djem, defensive training, intense presence, an one grit, so 9 talents to work with,

1 toughened

vaapad: maybe you roll your force dice as part of a lightsaber attacks can spend pips to generate success or advantage, can spend triumph to prevent target from using parry against the attack (it's about being unpredictable)?

2 reflect (not sure about these)

crippling blow,

sense advantage,

spend 2 strain to move to engage an opponent in short range as an incidental, decreases the critical rating of your next lightsaber combat check against that opponent in the same round by 1.

2 ranks of lethal blows

maybe put a balance in there somewhere,

Juyo is an entirely offensive spec it most closely resembles Ataru. Except instead of the moves being a constant flow from one to another it is staccato.

Meaning the entire style is designed to start and stop suddenly causing opponents to be caught off guard by its unpredictable attacks.

It would have zero reflect, parry or dodge in a tree, because its an entirely overly aggressive offensive style.

Think of it as an exact opposite of every other Lightsaber style.

It feeds off the rage of its user to grow stronger and increase its power. Think of it as the berserker style of Star Wars.

Vapaad feeds off the rage of its opponent to increase the power of its attacks

On 5/6/2017 at 9:58 PM, Decorus said:

Juyo is an entirely offensive spec it most closely resembles Ataru. Except instead of the moves being a constant flow from one to another it is staccato.

Meaning the entire style is designed to start and stop suddenly causing opponents to be caught off guard by its unpredictable attacks.

It would have zero reflect, parry or dodge in a tree, because its an entirely overly aggressive offensive style.

Think of it as an exact opposite of every other Lightsaber style.

It feeds off the rage of its user to grow stronger and increase its power. Think of it as the berserker style of Star Wars.

Vapaad feeds off the rage of its opponent to increase the power of its attacks

While Juyo is highly aggressive, it doesn't mean it has no defensive ability. In fact, I see irregular style parrying playing into it's unpredictable style. Juyo is also the newest of the 7 forms, and all of them after Makashi had at least some blaster deflection ability. So while I think it will have few defensive talents, it will likely have 1-2 Parry and at least 1 Reflect.

You mentioned rage being a component of increasing Juyo's power, but that's not true at all. All canon material claims the style is highly aggressive by requiring the user to enjoy the flow of combat. Jedi simply had to allow themselves to enjoy battle to capitalize on the styles benefits. Rage doesn't enter the picture until you start talking about Vaapad.

" Predictably, he seeks to unbalance you with his erratic attacks. His technique is called Juyo, the most chaotic of the lightsaber forms. This form sacrifices much to bolster offense, leaving one exposed to attack by the Force. "

Its an entirely offensive style and completely sacrifices defense for offense leaving its users exposed to attacks.

Makashi is not the first form it was designed for blade on blade combat and as such has no defense against ranged weapons.

Soresu was made as a counter to blaster fire and is an entirely defensive style.

Ataru is a heavily acrobatic and aggressive style its also the closest style to Juyo.

Shien is an improvement on Soresu designed to fix its lack of offensive ability.

Niman is a general all around style that is easy to learn and is generally practiced by Jedi who have little interest or need to fight with a lightsaber.

38 minutes ago, Decorus said:

" Predictably, he seeks to unbalance you with his erratic attacks. His technique is called Juyo, the most chaotic of the lightsaber forms. This form sacrifices much to bolster offense, leaving one exposed to attack by the Force. "

Its an entirely offensive style and completely sacrifices defense for offense leaving its users exposed to attacks.

Makashi is not the first form it was designed for blade on blade combat and as such has no defense against ranged weapons.

Soresu was made as a counter to blaster fire and is an entirely defensive style.

Ataru is a heavily acrobatic and aggressive style its also the closest style to Juyo.

Shien is an improvement on Soresu designed to fix its lack of offensive ability.

Niman is a general all around style that is easy to learn and is generally practiced by Jedi who have little interest or need to fight with a lightsaber.

Your quote said leaves one exposed to attacks by the Force not blasters. And it seems like the tree ought to have talents that add setback dice on the opponent's melee attacks against the practitioner... defensive training seems like it fits the MECHANICAL requirements perfectly but could be refluffed.

Thematically it should have nothing used for defense.

" Six there were for generations of Jedi. The seventh, is not well-known. Powerful form it is. Deadliest of all. But dangerous it is, for its master as well as its opponent. Few have studied. One student alone, to mastery has risen. "

Juyo is as Yoda says the deadliest form and its just as dangerous to its user as its opponent.

Which mean nope no defense.

By its very nature defending with it would be impossible.

None of these quotes say that the style has no defense. All they imply is that it's weak on defense. But not completely without it.

How about Juyo as a universal spec in a non-career focused book? Give it a rather torturous talent tree that has a few "waste xp" gate-keeping talents and requires going through multiple 25xp talents before plunging back down the tree to get to the really good talents to reflect how difficult a style it is to master and to offset the XP reduction for it being a universal spec. And no force rating talent. I've got a really strong gut feeling that Niman should remain the only lightsaber style with a +force rating talent.

I guess I am still holding out hope for a "Secrets of the Force" book that they can chuck a lot of stuff into that they haven't been able to fit into the six career books. Odd force powers, odd lightsaber styles, more meat about dark-side force users, more fluff about other force traditions, all that sort of goodness.

21 hours ago, Decorus said:

Thematically it should have nothing used for defense.

" Six there were for generations of Jedi. The seventh, is not well-known. Powerful form it is. Deadliest of all. But dangerous it is, for its master as well as its opponent. Few have studied. One student alone, to mastery has risen. "

Juyo is as Yoda says the deadliest form and its just as dangerous to its user as its opponent.

Which mean nope no defense.

By its very nature defending with it would be impossible.

You're misinterpreting Yoda's comment. It was dangerous for the master because of Juyo's aggressiveness and the required "enjoyment of combat". So it was dangerous because many wielders of Juyo fell to the Dark Side of the force. Yoda later mentions more jedi wielders of Juyo have fallen throughout history, then any other forms wielders.

23 hours ago, Decorus said:

" Predictably, he seeks to unbalance you with his erratic attacks. His technique is called Juyo, the most chaotic of the lightsaber forms. This form sacrifices much to bolster offense, leaving one exposed to attack by the Force. "

Its an entirely offensive style and completely sacrifices defense for offense leaving its users exposed to attacks.

Makashi is not the first form it was designed for blade on blade combat and as such has no defense against ranged weapons.

Soresu was made as a counter to blaster fire and is an entirely defensive style.

Ataru is a heavily acrobatic and aggressive style its also the closest style to Juyo.

Shien is an improvement on Soresu designed to fix its lack of offensive ability.

Niman is a general all around style that is easy to learn and is generally practiced by Jedi who have little interest or need to fight with a lightsaber.

First, that quote is not canon material. It was made in a video game that was required to balance the forms against one another, hence why Shien had a penalty for Defense against your single target, a weakness that exists and is mentioned no where else but this game. Also, no other material, Legends or canon, mentions even once that Juyo has a weakness against force abilities.

I also heavily debunk the idea that a form is a series of rigid techniques that can only ever be applied to a particlar form; a form to a Jedi or sith is an ideology that embodies a particular pattern or mindset in the given environment with some overlap in-between side from some of the really Nichie forms (Makashi in particular is referenced to have only been designed for sword combat, thus disadvantagous when being shot at). Juyo is particularly mentioned because it is an aggressive form in both the mind and spirit; it's flaws are less in the techniques then it is in throwing away technique and engaging your foe completely to kill them, instead on drawing on a more disciplined mindset that doesn't interact with a target to quite that extent but establishes a standard protocol of techniques that removes passion fron the fight.

Personally, lightsaber forms is one of those fluff things that make Jedi sound fancy, but ultimately is a salad dressing to a otherwise bland lettuce. Heck, I honestly believe even a person who has never met a Jedi could cobble together a form resembling one of the 7, just based on their instinctive thinking when dealing with a combatant. Some Jedi are just hopelessly incapable at deflecting blaster bolts and instead prefer to pour all their passion into researching the force/dueling based forms. Most of those people probably died on Genosis or never was on the front lines (Same, we rarely see Dooku in a situation where he's being shot at)