I don't think you need to change anything about the way stress works... Just introduce more things that prey on stressed opponents ...

Good call.

I mean, to be fair, the stress from Zuckuss still matters, so I don't understand the complaint?

It still prevents the ship from performing Red Maneuvers or getting a Perform Action Step during their activation phase. Those are real drawbacks and costs. The point of a Zuckuss Party-Bus or Dengar, though, is that the list assumes the benefits of Zuckuss' forced-rerolls on offense is worth more than the loss of Red Maneuvers and a Perform Action Step.

Stress tokens always matter, just in some builds they don't matter enough to keep from piling on in the right circumstances.

Scum also benefit from having lots of other upgrades that have powerful benefits and pile on stress, regardless of if you are already stressed and regardless of if you get actions or not: Inertial Dampeners, Glitterstim, and Overclocked Astromech, for instance.

Degaroo is about as close as you get to having the stress from Zuckuss not mattering. You've got a ship that has a turret and a dial that removing reds doesn't hurt too much that doesn't really care much about actions that gets the opportunity to use Zuckuss more than once each round.

He's a great crew on other ships but needs to be used a bit more judiciously. He's probably worth more than a single point but isn't really broken outside of the Dengaroo perfect storm.

Limiting zuckass once per round. That'll probably fix it.

The problem with Zuckass is he has no limit as to how often you can use him a round. It's not just his ability alone that hurts, and a number of things.

1) Dengar can do it more than once

2) Dengar doesn't care about actions because he's fed through manaroo

3) That dial. The dial is sick. White s loop, with Zuckass, plus manaroo ability was a disaster waiting to happen.

4) Other upgrades lone wolf for example again, don't care about stress, so has two ways to modify.

5) over clocked droid, I'll keep on using my focus, and I don't care about stress.

Now if we take zuckass out of the equation this list loses a lot of what it has going for it. Still be strong, but nowhere near as strong. If you watch the video below without zuckass this game would probably not have gone so well

Zuckass can be scary on other ships that are not dengar, but not nearly as bad. It's that dengar can attack twice per round and using zuckass each time to make you reroll those evades.

In our regionals dengar single handedly took out a 5 ship scum swarm. Manaroo neber attacked once, and dengar took out 2 z95, 2 kahryx fighters, and a ywing. That's pretty impressive for one ship to do, and without the need to arc Dodge. Just fly straight at him and he's golden

My friend and I believe it's the combination of things that is broken, but zuckass more than anything. He was right about whisper pre cloak days, and I believe hes also right about this (I disagreed about whisper at the time)

For the record that is me flying the dengar list, and I felt very bad for my opponent.

I don't think 1 ship Should be able to man handle a list in such a way

I've flown against dengeraoo a few times and I've beaten it twice. It was by no means an easy task. The key is hit him hard, which I did with whisper, but every game (win or lose) whisper died very fast.

I don't think 1 ship Should be able to man handle a list in such a way

Sure, but it's not 1 ship. It's 2 ships. Or, it's a like 98pt combo that essentially makes one SUPER ship. That only has 9HP.

It's very good, but I don't know that it's bananas. The above listed Scum Swarm isn't really top tier competitive. Honestly, we could have seen Soontir and Inquisitor do the same thing to that swarm with only 66 points in total. It's just something you need to be aware of in the meta right now.

Either bring a punch big enough to crack Dengar's formidable defenses, or be fast enough to run Manaroo into the ground. Don't leave home with neither and expect to breeze your way into a tournament win.

Yes we know it's not "just one ship" but it's only 1 ship on the offensive. As I said in my post, it's a whole combination of things, but as I pointed out without zuckass, this game still could have gone differently

Again we haven't really seen anything like this since the pre cloak days of the phantom where 1 ship can take on an entire list. Even fel is hard press to solo an entire list

Unlike the phantom or fel though this ship isn't even trying to dodge arcs or not get shot at. It's flying right in the middle.

Actually when I first shot at his kahryx and left him with 1 dmg, I was hoping he'd shot back. I was literally thinking to myself "come on shoot back". That's usually the opposite of what you want in this game is to get shot at. It's usually the other way around

Even with wave 9 dropping soon, I don't really see anything that'll make dengeraoo shake in its boots.

Zuckass sho cost 3 pts if you ask me, or be limited to the amount of stress 3 or less, or be limited once per round, or a combination.

While zuckass isn't as bad imo on other ships again it's the whole combination that seems broken, so I think limiting in once per round would probably be enough, and maybe cost 2 pts.

This won't effect the party bus as it only shoot per round and makes dengaroo not get that initiative bid as easily

Name me 1 other ship that can fly straight at the enemy's list and single handedly take every one out?

Also my opponent did also managed to make the top table to play against me at this point so he did fly his list well, though what his match us were prior , I don't know

Going back to the NPE thing, Zuckuss was unbelievably stupid design. They'd already, internally, nailed down crackshot and therefore knew exactly how frustrating "Yes I rolled exactly enough evades and eyeballs to dodge the hit oh wait I took a damage anyway" is. And then they said, "Okay, but what if we could reproduce that feeling of frustration every turn except with more than one green result , wouldn't that be great?"

Uh, no. No, it's not great. It's kind of terrible.

Zuckass sho cost 3 pts if you ask me, or be limited to the amount of stress 3 or less, or be limited once per round, or a combination.

Limiting him to 3 or 5 or even 10 points of stress would have been an easy and solid restriction. I have to agree on that. I still don't think that he needs something as drastic as an errata. He is fine as one of the scum crew cornerstones and he has very strong competition for his crew slot anyway. It not like that boba was in some list prefered over him or 4-lom or dengar or soon Ketsu and Latts as well.

Going back to the NPE thing, Zuckuss was unbelievably stupid design. They'd already, internally, nailed down crackshot and therefore knew exactly how frustrating "Yes I rolled exactly enough evades and eyeballs to dodge the hit oh wait I took a damage anyway" is. And then they said, "Okay, but what if we could reproduce that feeling of frustration every turn except with more than one green result , wouldn't that be great?"

Uh, no. No, it's not great. It's kind of terrible.

The opposite actually. Crackshot is a case of "Oh, I missed one evade result to counter crackshot and now I have to take that evade to prevent damage preemptively, because else he will use crackshot to do damage." Crackshot is something that you can account for and should account for before you even take the dice in your hand.

Zuckuss at the other hand is just making you roll those fickle dice twice to make them more fickle. That is indeed a negative experience, because they have now twice the opportunity to betray you. There is little counter play to that, it just rolling dice and iirc it even counters itself lonewolf as you can not re-roll dice twice. Thinking about it, having focus and evade tokens would still counter a large portion of zuckuss … so ok, there is counter play. Maybe that is the reason why zuckuss never bothered me personally.

Name me 1 other ship that can fly straight at the enemy's list and single handedly take every one out?

Sure, but the fact that it flies differently than other lists isn't indicative of the 98pt combination being over powered.

That's like saying 58pt Dash is OP because you can't name another ship that can go that fast, in that many possible directions, all while ignoring obstacles. There are counters to Dash, there are counters to Dengaroo. It is kind of unfortunate when something becomes trendy enough that you either need to play the thing, or play the counter to the thing, but that's just the way that metas go, sometimes.

Also, hyperbole. Nothing Dengar does is without an entire ship being used as support, so a more fair comparison would be to ask what two ships can do the same thing.

Going back to the NPE thing, Zuckuss was unbelievably stupid design. They'd already, internally, nailed down crackshot and therefore knew exactly how frustrating "Yes I rolled exactly enough evades and eyeballs to dodge the hit oh wait I took a damage anyway" is. And then they said, "Okay, but what if we could reproduce that feeling of frustration every turn except with more than one green result , wouldn't that be great?"

Uh, no. No, it's not great. It's kind of terrible.

But people dish out "NPE" for any situation or game that they're losing. Prior to Zuckuss existing, it was probably a very NPE for every person who ever flew a YV-666 to roll perfect attack dice and then have Imperial Aces adjust their green dice until they had four evades. Great. Now Zuckuss exists, and we can all have a NPE, regardless of which side of the table we're on.

Limiting zuckass once per round. That'll probably fix it.

The problem with Zuckass is he has no limit as to how often you can use him a round. It's not just his ability alone that hurts, and a number of things.

1) Dengar can do it more than once

2) Dengar doesn't care about actions because he's fed through manaroo

3) That dial. The dial is sick. White s loop, with Zuckass, plus manaroo ability was a disaster waiting to happen.

4) Other upgrades lone wolf for example again, don't care about stress, so has two ways to modify.

5) over clocked droid, I'll keep on using my focus, and I don't care about stress.

Now if we take zuckass out of the equation this list loses a lot of what it has going for it. Still be strong, but nowhere near as strong. If you watch the video below without zuckass this game would probably not have gone so well

Zuckass can be scary on other ships that are not dengar, but not nearly as bad. It's that dengar can attack twice per round and using zuckass each time to make you reroll those evades.

In our regionals dengar single handedly took out a 5 ship scum swarm. Manaroo neber attacked once, and dengar took out 2 z95, 2 kahryx fighters, and a ywing. That's pretty impressive for one ship to do, and without the need to arc Dodge. Just fly straight at him and he's golden

My friend and I believe it's the combination of things that is broken, but zuckass more than anything. He was right about whisper pre cloak days, and I believe hes also right about this (I disagreed about whisper at the time)

For the record that is me flying the dengar list, and I felt very bad for my opponent.

I don't think 1 ship Should be able to man handle a list in such a way

I've flown against dengeraoo a few times and I've beaten it twice. It was by no means an easy task. The key is hit him hard, which I did with whisper, but every game (win or lose) whisper died very fast.

This clip proves nothing because your opponent flew suboptimal list and made a ton of mistakes.

As I said it's the whole combination, but I believe zuckass is key here. Like any equation take out one thing and the equation no longer works.

Yes dengar has the help from manaroo, but it's still one ship on the offensive. Manaroo is giving him his actions. Again no ship since pre nerf phantom could offensively take out an entire squadron.

Dengar is able to run head on into a group of ships and one by one blow every single one of them up by himself.

And again as to stay on topic a main factor here is zuckass. If zuckass wasn't there dengar even with manaroo wouldn't be near the strength that he is with Zuckass on board.

Yes dengar isn't unbeatable, and neither was pre nerf phantoms, I and many others have beaten both lists, but one can't deny the strength of these ships, and ask what is it that makes them so strong. The phantom was it's decloak after everything moves. Dengar is getting to use zuckass twice a round

Edit

And let's face it, if your not running top tier lists or direct hard counters your going to have a uphill battle, especially if your opponent knows what to do with it.

Even if your running a top meta list, it's still not going to be easy, and if your running a direct counter then your leaving yourself open for other lists to beat yours.

So anyway ba k to my main point which I think seems to be forgotten and that is Zuckass. Zuckass needs to be re rules somehow. Errata throu faq, or as some suggested change the actual rules on the stress mechanic. As it is now with wave 9 out I don't see anything that'll make dengeraoo go away any time soon, maybe wave 10 will, but that's yet to be seen

Going back to the NPE thing, Zuckuss was unbelievably stupid design. They'd already, internally, nailed down crackshot and therefore knew exactly how frustrating "Yes I rolled exactly enough evades and eyeballs to dodge the hit oh wait I took a damage anyway" is. And then they said, "Okay, but what if we could reproduce that feeling of frustration every turn except with more than one green result , wouldn't that be great?"

Uh, no. No, it's not great. It's kind of terrible.

But people dish out "NPE" for any situation or game that they're losing. Prior to Zuckuss existing, it was probably a very NPE for every person who ever flew a YV-666 to roll perfect attack dice and then have Imperial Aces adjust their green dice until they had four evades. Great. Now Zuckuss exists, and we can all have a NPE, regardless of which side of the table we're on.

There was a solid counterplay against that. Shooting again. Stripping tokens with a kill box is the counter play mechanic against token stacks. Blocking is the mechanic against arc dodging. And the ships dials and abilities are build around that idea.

Zuckuss is in this regard another tool in the box and a very weak one against imperial aces. As you mentioned and I mentioned, we have all those tools to adjust our dice after Zuckuss made us re-roll them. He is downright nasty against ships which can not counter his modification with their own.

Changing the rules for Zuckuss is kind of hilarious to me. Has all the Zuckuss haters completely forgotten the frustration of completely powerful defenses that existed? Is Palp Aces no longer the top dog?

Also, one card does not mean the stress mechanics are broken.

As I said it's the whole combination, but I believe zuckass is key here. Like any equation take out one thing and the equation no longer works.

Yes dengar has the help from manaroo, but it's still one ship on the offensive . Manaroo is giving him his actions. Again no ship since pre nerf phantom could offensively take out an entire squadron.

Dengar is able to run head on into a group of ships and one by one blow every single one of them up by himself .

And again as to stay on topic a main factor here is zuckass. If zuckass wasn't there dengar even with manaroo wouldn't be near the strength that he is with Zuckass on board.

Yes dengar isn't unbeatable, and neither was pre nerf phantoms, I and many others have beaten both lists, but one can't deny the strength of these ships, and ask what is it that makes them so strong. The phantom was it's decloak after everything moves. Dengar is getting to use zuckass twice a round

Honestly, I don't even know why I'm arguing with you, aside from the fact that I find it very disingenuous every time someone says that Dengar is doing anything "by himself". It's a two ship list that just puts both of its two attacks onto the same ship. There are still two ships enemy ships and two enemy attacks. We've been doing that for ages. The only difference here is that the two attacks come from the same origin, and thus they're both subject to Zuckuss being a d-bag.

I agree with you , that Zuckuss is key. Honestly, my original post in this thread was an agreement that he should probably be 2 points, possibly even 3. It also wouldn't have been the worst if he'd had an in-arc requirement, as that would not have impacted the Party Bus, and then arc-dodging Dengar would have had twice the benefit that it currently has.

All that being said, if it feels like Dengaroo is way more powerful than the way we used to make lists (like 5 ship Scum swarms, where we use TLTs and Predator), that's only a feeling you're having because Dengaroo is in fact more powerful than the way we used to make lists. That's because each new card that comes out ups the power of the combinations that we're able to create at a competitive level.

First, Deadeye existed. Nobody cares. Then R4 Agromech came out (irrelevant), and Extra Munitions helped bombs a little bit, but didn't really fix munitions. Then Contracts Scouts with all the rights slots came out at the same time as Guidance Chips. Suddenly Deadeyes and R4 Agromechs are on tables everywhere.

First, Soontir existed. He exploded often. Then, Royal Guard title was invented. It helped. Next, autothrusters came out. Soontir exploded even less often. Then Palpatine came out, and suddenly Soontir is the scourge of the entire game, and BBBBZ ceases to be a thing, because nothing in the pile can catch that jerk.

As long as we keep adding to the pile of cards to come up with increasingly more powerful combinations, the less relevant things like jousty PS2 B-Wings and K-Fighters are going to be (in 100pt games), and that's not really the fault of the new toys, it's just what happens as a game like this expands.

For some reason Zuckuss doesn't bother me that much. He is really good on two ships but I have beat people running those lists before so it doesn't seem so strong. Zuckuss puts a timer on my match, if I don't kill or out maneuver the thing carrying Zuckuss before X amount of shots have been taken I am likely to lose. On the flip side it usually isn't overly difficult to take him out. 1 Agi on YVs and 2 Agi on Dengar.

Palpatine irritates me more, but that is because I have had dice go cold at the worse times. I can get the blocks on need on Aces like Soontir or The Inquis fairly well but then Palpatine saves the day.

I like the idea of more upgrades that prey on stressed pilots. An EPT that gives you real offensive advantage when attacking a stressed target could be nice; maybe add a red die or have the defender lose a green die.

As it is now with wave 9 out I don't see anything that'll make dengeraoo go away any time soon...

Maybe.

My only real thought on this subject is that the Lancer is fast and that Ventress with PtL and an engine, shooting stress at Manaroo, might be able to shut down the entire action pass chain much faster than the current solution of chasing Manaroo for 2 or 3 or 4 turns in order to make her explode. Just one more answer added into the pile.

For some reason Zuckuss doesn't bother me that much.

it's because you know green dice are **** worthless anyway

As it is now with wave 9 out I don't see anything that'll make dengeraoo go away any time soon...

Maybe.

My only real thought on this subject is that the Lancer is fast and that Ventress with PtL and an engine, shooting stress at Manaroo, might be able to shut down the entire action pass chain much faster than the current solution of chasing Manaroo for 2 or 3 or 4 turns in order to make her explode. Just one more answer added into the pile.

Having flown the Lancer a few times... I don't think that's going to totally shut things down. It hasn't got that much firepower on its own and Dengar isn't about to just let Ventress take her time for 4 turns. The Lancer isn't that tough. On paper, I don't like this match up so much... Then again, I'm known to be mistaken from time to time...

As it is now with wave 9 out I don't see anything that'll make dengeraoo go away any time soon...

Maybe.

My only real thought on this subject is that the Lancer is fast and that Ventress with PtL and an engine, shooting stress at Manaroo, might be able to shut down the entire action pass chain much faster than the current solution of chasing Manaroo for 2 or 3 or 4 turns in order to make her explode. Just one more answer added into the pile.

Having flown the Lancer a few times... I don't think that's going to totally shut things down. It hasn't got that much firepower on its own and Dengar isn't about to just let Ventress take her time for 4 turns. The Lancer isn't that tough. On paper, I don't like this match up so much... Then again, I'm known to be mistaken from time to time...

It probably depends very heavily on Ventress' partner(s).

Ventress can move real fast and possibly apply double stress to Manaroo to shut down the action pass chain. You're right though, then the trick is to capitalize on this short term advantage before Ventress gets taken to task by Dengar. You can capitalize by having your other ship, _______, do _______, and ________.

There's probably a solid answer out there somewhere. We'll figure it.

So anyway ba k to my main point which I think seems to be forgotten and that is Zuckass. Zuckass needs to be re rules somehow. Errata throu faq, or as some suggested change the actual rules on the stress mechanic. As it is now with wave 9 out I don't see anything that'll make dengeraoo go away any time soon, maybe wave 10 will, but that's yet to be seen

Why dors Zuckuss NEED to be 're rules'? Dengaroo is not dominating any more than other top archetypes (most of which btw will also destroy you unless you run a competitive list).

And why Zuckuss as opposed to/before any other card in other top performing lists, like Palpatine or Deadeye for example ?*

*I personally don't think any of those are a huge problem, except maybe Palp because IMO it started the arms race, but that ship has long sailed.

For some reason Zuckuss doesn't bother me that much.

it's because you know green dice are **** worthless anyway

Works the other way around too. If you have all the mods and dice in the world, you don't care how often you have to re-roll them.

Anyway, back to that stress counter cards ideas. Let's get iconic, even maybe not enough starships on the artwork:

All that being said, if it feels like Dengaroo is way more powerful than the way we used to make lists (like 5 ship Scum swarms, where we use TLTs and Predator), that's only a feeling you're having because Dengaroo is in fact more powerful than the way we used to make lists. That's because each new card that comes out ups the power of the combinations that we're able to create at a competitive level.

One also needs to remember that most Scum lists have been somewhat sub-par for a long time (the overwhelming majority of Scum lists doing well had been Brobots pre wave 8). Anything competitive was bound to feel like a pretty big leap forward compared to anything but Brobots.

Do people in this thread not know that ignoring dengar is a hard counter to dengaroo?

How about crew mitigation:

Surgical Strike

EPT

2 points

if the target of your attack is dealt a damage card, discard this card to choose and remove one crew or modification upgrade from the targeted ship.

TLDR;

Besides I think we already covered this topic earlier this week!