Don't you just LOVE IT when something that has been around forever (the MASSIVE Stress stack here) is suddenly deemed so powerful that IT MUST BE DESTROYED!!!!? Really? They why weren't you whining about it two years ago or more when it first happened? Why not even a year ago?

If you want to whine about how some ships seems overpowered despite having a mountain of stress tokens chasing them around maybe you'd be better off just bitching about the thing that finally ticked you off enough to start complaining about a symptom instead of the cause of the problem.

I mean, yeah. The actual answer is to give Manaroo and Palpatine a range limit and then suddenly Dengaroo and Palp Aces have a significantly higher skill floor and are also, you know, just plain weaker.

Easiest way is to use Conditions.

Action: Give an enemy ship the condition "Are You Feeling The Heat?"

"Are You Feeling The Heat?" - if this ship is stressed, reduce it's Pilot Skill by 1 for each stress token, to a maximum of -3.

Don't you just LOVE IT when something that has been around forever (the MASSIVE Stress stack here) is suddenly deemed so powerful that IT MUST BE DESTROYED!!!!? Really? They why weren't you whining about it two years ago or more when it first happened? Why not even a year ago?

If you want to whine about how some ships seems overpowered despite having a mountain of stress tokens chasing them around maybe you'd be better off just bitching about the thing that finally ticked you off enough to start complaining about a symptom instead of the cause of the problem.

Whining about what is perceived to be people whining...classic.

If you it pointed out as to why there weren't any complaints about the JM5K 1-2 years ago I don't think you have been playing this game long enough...

Thank you for adding nothing to the discussion StevenO, this is not a nerf anything thread, if you bothered to read any of it, it is a discussion as to how to make stress do what it was intended to do when it was conceived, but like most keyboard warriors, you probably didn't read that far.

Don't you just LOVE IT when something that has been around forever (the MASSIVE Stress stack here) is suddenly deemed so powerful that IT MUST BE DESTROYED!!!!? Really? They why weren't you whining about it two years ago or more when it first happened? Why not even a year ago?

If you want to whine about how some ships seems overpowered despite having a mountain of stress tokens chasing them around maybe you'd be better off just bitching about the thing that finally ticked you off enough to start complaining about a symptom instead of the cause of the problem.

Not very constructive.

I can see the op point. Stress was originally designed as a negative factor, or penalty in this game. You do x you get a stress. Do x to clear stress. While stressed you cannot do x and x. Then Tycho came along and was the 1 unique ship/pilot that ignored all awing-rules basically, but hey he's in an awing so Meh, who cares? Right? Of coarse that was many waves ago.

Does the ruling on stress need to be looked at? Now that we are starting to see more ships that can still function very well with mountains of stress? Tha,t I don't know. Should it be something to be considered? Maybe, but again I don't know.

Only thing I know for sure is when your flying a ship that is highly dependent on green dice to keep it alive, you need those evades. I also do know that red dice have more hits and crits on them then green dice have evades, so when your do roll nice and roll 3 evades, it really sucks having that taken away from you, because you, myself and everyone can agree your very likely not going to reroll that a second time around (not impossible, but very unlikely) the cost for this ability stress.

I didn't see what lists were in the Australian nationals, but someone mentioned every scum list had zuckass. I assume they all didn't have dengar. Personally I don't think the problem is so much all the stress, but zuckass is just too powerful for what he dies and at its cost. Elusiveness? Why even bother.at a cost of an elite and 3 pts and only gets to reroll 1?

Hey I disagreed when all my buddies said phantoms were over powered, but then came that nerf. Now they say zuckass is OP, and I have to say I agree with them. I'm not saying it's unbeatable because it is. I've beaten many phantoms pre nerf, and zuckasses, but they really do suck the fun out of the game. I can see it in people's face. Oh I rolled 3 evades, but your going to **** with that, oh look I rolled blanks yah!! Lol. I know I sure as hell hate it when I'm on the other side of the fence

I only have couple people to play with, And if i want them to have fun, I don't use zuckass, because I know it's frustrating for them. Especially if they just want to fly a fun list and I bring something that uses zuckass. It goes from fun list to frustrating list

Anyway on a different note, where is all the cool imperial crew? Scum getting new scum only crew, rebel getting new droids, what does empire get? And please don't say tailgunner

Thank you for adding nothing to the discussion StevenO, this is not a nerf anything thread, if you bothered to read any of it, it is a discussion as to how to make stress do what it was intended to do when it was conceived, but like most keyboard warriors, you probably didn't read that far.

He does have a point though. If you are bothered by the idea that stress no longer works 'as intended' as opposed to just being bothered by Dengaroo, why now? Why not complain about this when Tycho came out? Or when the Stresshog could just fly around and stress people indefinitely despite accumulating a mountain of stress itself?

I'm just seeing all of the sudden complaints about ships that happen to carry, or in some cases be given, a stack of Stress token and find it disturbing. The same thing could be said about the recent complaints on Deadeye calling for nerfs to the EPT that has mostly been sitting on the sidelines since it first came out.

I didn't see what lists were in the Australian nationals, but someone mentioned every scum list had zuckass. I assume they all didn't have dengar.

Hey I disagreed when all my buddies said phantoms were over powered, but then came that nerf. Now they say zuckass is OP, and I have to say I agree with them. I'm not saying it's unbeatable because it is. I've beaten many phantoms pre nerf, and zuckasses, but they really do suck the fun out of the game. I can see it in people's face. Oh I rolled 3 evades, but your going to **** with that, oh look I rolled blanks yah!! Lol. I know I sure as hell hate it when I'm on the other side of the fence

Actually, all lists at the Australian nationals had either Dengaroo or Party Bus (one of these was Bossk with K4 droid, Zuckuss and 4LOM), so you stil don't find him outside these 2 builds.

Also, Zuckuss is op because it's not fun? What does fun have to do with power ?

I didn't see what lists were in the Australian nationals, but someone mentioned every scum list had zuckass. I assume they all didn't have dengar.

Hey I disagreed when all my buddies said phantoms were over powered, but then came that nerf. Now they say zuckass is OP, and I have to say I agree with them. I'm not saying it's unbeatable because it is. I've beaten many phantoms pre nerf, and zuckasses, but they really do suck the fun out of the game. I can see it in people's face. Oh I rolled 3 evades, but your going to **** with that, oh look I rolled blanks yah!! Lol. I know I sure as hell hate it when I'm on the other side of the fence

Actually, all lists at the Australian nationals had either Dengaroo or Party Bus (one of these was Bossk with K4 droid, Zuckuss and 4LOM), so you stil don't find him outside these 2 builds.

Also, Zuckuss is op because it's not fun? What does fun have to do with power ?

I never said it was op because it's not fun. Zuckass is op for what he does and at his cost.

Costs 1 pt. Is a crew, and can be used numerous times in a round if able. His main cost stress, and scum only. Very powerful on the slaver and U-boat. In fact I think getting to choose the amount of green dice to reroll a very powerful ability. If it was just 1 that wouldn't be so bad, still cheaper than elusiveness, and doesn't take your elite which is a better upgrade slot imo

It's hard enough at times to get those evades when you need them. Not every ship has an evade action, so when you do get a good roll and it's taken away from you, ya kind of takes the fun out if it

He just sucks the fun out of the game. I can see it on people's face, hell I can tell with some I play on vassal, and I know I hate it if I am wanting to play a casual list or something then have zuckass there. He's a pain in the ass, and I always feel bad when I use him. I sometimes apologize, but he's there and he's a viable option. You can't deny something you know works so well, especially if you can fit it in your list. Yet I still feel guilty somehow

Thank you for adding nothing to the discussion StevenO, this is not a nerf anything thread, if you bothered to read any of it, it is a discussion as to how to make stress do what it was intended to do when it was conceived, but like most keyboard warriors, you probably didn't read that far.

He does have a point though. If you are bothered by the idea that stress no longer works 'as intended' as opposed to just being bothered by Dengaroo, why now? Why not complain about this when Tycho came out? Or when the Stresshog could just fly around and stress people indefinitely despite accumulating a mountain of stress itself?

I didnt have a problem with the StressHog because it was in a Y Wing and it was fixed to the front arc and at range 2, so many what if's to function that you couldnt just hurr durr your ship to the middle of the board and wipe out anyone that comes within range. As Krynn has said, Tycho was in an A wing, fast but very fragile. Zuckuss is too cheap to not have an arc restriction, plus he can mod as many dice as you want, which is extremely rare in X Wing. Most of the time you can do 1, with a few that allow you to do 2 with certain restrictions.

The bad thing about Zuckuss/Dengar is that to counter it there will be another power creep in a wave or 2, making older ships even more obsolete, meaning FFg will need to create more fixes so that they are sold. It is becoming band aid gaming, rather than balanced from the get go.

I'm just seeing all of the sudden complaints about ships that happen to carry, or in some cases be given, a stack of Stress token and find it disturbing. The same thing could be said about the recent complaints on Deadeye calling for nerfs to the EPT that has mostly been sitting on the sidelines since it first came out.

It is the endless cycle of the metagame. Whatever is at the top will be complained about and decried as OP.

As they said, Tycho was on an A-Wing, with 4 health and 2 attack. It wasn't breaking the game.

The Stressbot was a Y-Wing with a super restricted dial, not so great survivability if focused, and restricted to arc. It had no chance to modify its attacks because it cannot equip talents, crew, and barely no stress-ignoring modifiers in the rebel faction it could benefit from. Also, its ability was to assign stress, not to deal damage. It was a control ship that kept Palpaces from bullying the meta.

It stressed other ships at the cost of stressing itself, so limiting its dial to speed 2 turns and absolutely no modifiers to any roll.

It's not comparable with a JM5000 or YV-666. In both cases, piling up stress can be totally ignored by either equipping upgrades that provide modifiers even when you are stressed up (4-LOM, Dengar crew, Overclocked R4, Predator, etc), or getting modifiers from Manaroo. So, you bypass almost all limitations of stress because your upgrade bar and your faction exclusive upgrades allows you to.

Zuckuss, by itself, is great, and in any other ship it would be balanced because it would seriously have consequences for that ship. Again, with JM5000, the absolutely out of whack upgrade bar and dial easily lead to mitigate most of the inconveniences of stress.

The YV-666 is much tamer, but it is clear that Scum has the absolutely best crew in the game, and not only that, it is also the cheapest. And they do all kind of things, including modifying the defender's dice and the attacker's dice, all of that not depending on actions, and so, ignoring stress. Even without Manaroo, Dengar crew and K4 provide modify your attack dice, while 4-LOM and Zuckuss modify the defender's defense dice, all of that without caring about stress.

A green die is usually worth 3/8 evades, that means, 0.375 evades per die. So rolling 3 green dice should give you about 1.125 evade results.

Zuckuss crew reduces the defender's evade dice output to 0.14 evades per die (because if you roll an evade, you will have to reroll it). So rolling 3 green dice gives you 0.42 evade results. That is slightly more than what 1 unmodified green die produces! So we are talking here that a 3 Agility ship being "Zuckussed" is just slightly better than having two tractor beam tokens assigned, in terms of dice modifications. Or to be shot by Wedge with Outmaneuver.

That is caused by a 1 point card that works out of arc, multiple times per round, and whose main inconvenient to the carrier is probably mitigated by other cheap cards that give back what the stress takes away.

And because the defender better has a focus token for defending to try and mitigate Zuckuss, that keeps them from spending it on attacking, so it's obvious that the presence of Zuckuss will, most of the time, prevent the attacker from modifying their attack roll.

It does a huge lot for 1 point. Again, it would be justified if it's gameplay cost (several stress tokens) wouldn't be so easily ignored by using other ultracheap upgrades available.

It does a huge lot for 1 point. Again, it would be justified if it's gameplay cost (several stress tokens) wouldn't be so easily ignored by using other ultracheap upgrades available.

And yet, the end result (in either incarnation Party Bus and Dengaroo) is not overpowered compared to other squads at the top of the meta, so I don't really see the balance issue.

It does a huge lot for 1 point. Again, it would be justified if it's gameplay cost (several stress tokens) wouldn't be so easily ignored by using other ultracheap upgrades available.

And yet, the end result (in either incarnation Party Bus and Dengaroo) is not overpowered compared to other squads at the top of the meta, so I don't really see the balance issue.

Of course. Neither was pre-nerf TIE Phantom overpowered compared to Fat Han, that was also at the top of the meta. But both of them pushed away most other ships and builds out of the competitive game.

Both ships were nerfed (Decloak rules change, and large ship MOV rules change, along with the introduction of the TLT), and it lead to the most varied and healthy meta ever during Wave 7.

It does a huge lot for 1 point. Again, it would be justified if it's gameplay cost (several stress tokens) wouldn't be so easily ignored by using other ultracheap upgrades available.

And yet, the end result (in either incarnation Party Bus and Dengaroo) is not overpowered compared to other squads at the top of the meta, so I don't really see the balance issue.

Of course. Neither was pre-nerf TIE Phantom overpowered compared to Fat Han, that was also at the top of the meta. But both of them pushed away most other ships and builds out of the competitive game.

Both ships were nerfed (Decloak rules change, and large ship MOV rules change, along with the introduction of the TLT), and it lead to the most varied and healthy meta ever during Wave 7.

If you nerf Dengaroo you're back ro Palp Aces cs. U-boats. How is that an improvement ?

If you nerf Dengaroo you're back ro Palp Aces cs. U-boats. How is that an improvement ?

There will not be an easy solution to the mess the designers have got themselves into.

X-Wing Miniatures' meta is an ecosystem and behaves like it. Whenever you introduce a new species in it (a new ship, a new upgrade, or a combo of both), the effect is that the whole ecosystem loses its equilibrium for a while until another is reached. But the new "balance" reached isn't necessarily better, or even as good as the previous one.

Tons of species (ships, builds) may extinguish overnight, as it has happened now, where you can mostly see variations of uberdefensive builds (Palpaces, X7 defenders, Biggs plus stuff) and uber gamebreaking stuff (uboats, action-economy-bypassing builds, stress-bypassing builds).

I believe the cause of all of this is mainly the Jumpmaster 5000 in general and the Uboats in particular.

Without the ridiculous peak damage that build can release in the first rounds, the BBBBZ, Stressbot, 4TLT, Conner Wardens and other archtypes that kept Palpaces (and other high-action economy/high mitigation/low-durability builds) in line wouldn't have disappeared. By making Palpaces and the others free of their predators, even more builds that they preyed on have also disappeared. So now we are in a new equilibrium, Highlander style, where all others have died and only a handful list archetypes fight each other in an eternal loop.

Ordnance needed to be fixed so that jousters had a new tool to stay relevant, since it is, after all, an advanced form of jousting.

Instead, the designers created a nightmare that can not only joust with ordnance with all the bells and whistles imaginable that other jousters can only dream of, but also has a turret, lots of health, lots of greens, including turns, white segnor, incredible pilot abilities, large base barrel roll, ultra low price, and you can fit 3 of them in a list with spare point or two. They didn't make jousters relevant by fixing ordnance. The made them totally irrelavant by creating the JousterMaster 5000+ "Pure Powercreep Edition".

The Jumpmaster 5000 was a mistake, and the cause of most of these problems.

Jousters were already irrelevant before Jumpmasters, thanks largely to Palp aces. The sad truth is that, unless you have an EPT for Crackshot, your attacks will bounce off harmlessly off Palp Aces.

Take BBBBZ for example, which is one of the most effective non-Crack Shot jousting lists AFAIK. Does that have a realistic chance against Palp Aces?

Jousters were already irrelevant before Jumpmasters, thanks largely to Palp aces. The sad truth is that, unless you have an EPT for Crackshot, your attacks will bounce off harmlessly off Palp Aces.

Take BBBBZ for example, which is one of the most effective non-Crack Shot jousting lists AFAIK. Does that have a realistic chance against Palp Aces?

It has lousy efficiency, does not hit from range 3, does not get even arc on range 1 … not that I did not just lost with Palp Aces against X(Wedge)ZZY … mistakes were made, ships got blocked, aces explode. (Ironically this includes Wedge).

A jouster which can not joust might have efficient dice, but not the efficiency to actually kill something. BBBBZ has only one half-decent blocker and no real way to force a joust. X-Wing is chess with dice, not Yachzee with checkers. Efficiency does not come from good dice alone. A lesson FFG might have learned a little to good with the Jumpmasters Dial. ;-)

Jousters were already irrelevant before Jumpmasters, thanks largely to Palp aces. The sad truth is that, unless you have an EPT for Crackshot, your attacks will bounce off harmlessly off Palp Aces.

Take BBBBZ for example, which is one of the most effective non-Crack Shot jousting lists AFAIK. Does that have a realistic chance against Palp Aces?

JM15k, Trip /x7s, and Dengaroo are the most effective non-crack jouster lists at the moment.

Jousters were already irrelevant before Jumpmasters, thanks largely to Palp aces. The sad truth is that, unless you have an EPT for Crackshot, your attacks will bounce off harmlessly off Palp Aces.

Take BBBBZ for example, which is one of the most effective non-Crack Shot jousting lists AFAIK. Does that have a realistic chance against Palp Aces?

The were irrelevant, of course. That was what the ordnance fix was supposed to solve!

And no BBBBZ didn't necessarily beat Palpaces before. It was great at defeating lists (like stress control lists) that could easily defeat Palpaces, that defeat BBBBZ.

As part of the ordnance fix, perhaps something should have been released to make these jousters have a chance against token stacking ships. Like a torpedo that costs tops 4 points and can hit past lots of tokens. Something to improve B-Wing, X-Wing, Misthunter,...

If any, it is not Zuckuss who is causing problems, it's Manaroo who can pass tokens to Dengar without range restrictions.

If any, it is not Zuckuss who is causing problems, it's Manaroo who can pass tokens to Dengar without range restrictions.

The lack of range restriction is indeed somewhat of a problem, for Palp and Manaroo alike. Thinking about it, maybe a rules errata itself would nice:

"If not otherwise stated the max range of all abilities is 3." … but I still think that this is not needed and everything is mostly fine.

I'm just seeing all of the sudden complaints about ships that happen to carry, or in some cases be given, a stack of Stress token and find it disturbing. The same thing could be said about the recent complaints on Deadeye calling for nerfs to the EPT that has mostly been sitting on the sidelines since it first came out.

It is the endless cycle of the metagame. Whatever is at the top will be complained about and decried as OP.

Pre nerf phantoms were complained about a lot. I was one of the few who thought it wasn't broken, but they changed the way cloaking works. Hindsight, with good reason. Not everything at top meta lists are op, but some things can be.

If something is op, would it not make sense that it would be a top meta list? After all it's op.

I don't think Palatine is op. He's a real pain if your squad consists of something like a couple of bwing and XWing, but that's the nature of the game. There are plenty of ways to deal with it.

After some thought (though haven't tested it yet) I think the new double def with Palatine may put dengeraoo in check. Lots of token's to help against zuckass along with emperor, and target locks to help push that dmg through, and they like dengar want to joust.

Still doesnt change the fact that what zuckass does is very very strong. It's like what a poster previously stated with green dice you have a 3/8 chance to roll evade, and have to do that twice, and it only costs the dengar player 1 pt. That's a pretty nice upgrade for 1 pt.

Down the road this may get worse with new ships that don't care about stress, or as mentioned introduce new abilities that'll hurt ships that are already hurting. It may not, but it is something to consider.

My only problem with the dengaroo list is Zuckass. Ive used it a lot, and I feel bad every time I make my opponent reroll his evades. Out if everything that list has, that's the one upgrade that is the worst.

After all it's op.

I don't think Palatine is op. He's a real pain if your squad consists of something like a couple of bwing and XWing, but that's the nature of the game. There are plenty of ways to deal with it.

Changing how cloaking worked was one thing. It has only recently come out and was going through its growing pains and still only had one ship to look at. Stress has been around forever and since wave 2 stress stacks have been a thing.