I doubt it. Some abilities look great at a glance but turn out to be terrible on closer inspection (Expose is an example of this) and others are the inverse. Offer a new player Omega Ace or Omega Leader and they're probably going to take Ace.

Expose is a good example for what I am trying to say ever since I have started this thread.

Expose needs 1 action to be activated and therefore it only gives you +1 red in exchange for -1 green.

Norra Wexley needs 2 actions to be activated and therefore gives you +1 focus result in exchange for -1 Target Lock.

Expose is actually worse than the alternative (spending that action on focus).

Norra is significantly more powerful than the alternative (spending those tokens normally.)

It's also worth noting she only needs double economy to activate her ability in the front arc.

In addition to everything else said by you and others in this thread (great graphs btw) it's worth noting that Norra gets actually even better when shooting from the rear arc. At first glance this shouldn't happen because the green die that you deny to your opponent has a higher probability of blanking out than the red die you lose. However, from my observation it's less about how many dice are rolled and more about achieving that sweet spot when you score more hits than the enemy has green dice to defend himself with. Even if he does have an evade token, he needs to get really lucky not to suffer damage when that happens. While you can achieve that "damage overflow" (or however you call it) when firing from the front arc and scoring 4 hits with Norra, the chance of that happening is only 42%. Since from the back you only get 2 dice, the chance of not getting a single blank is 56% - the odds are significantly better. Not only that, but you're guaranteed to have at least one critical hit in that attack and while they're not exactly reliable, critical effects can get real nasty if applied regularly. So, for high agi targets such as defenders I find that Norra's even more powerful from the rear than your stats show.

The 2016 Worlds Tournament is over now.

There was not a single Norra Wexley in the Top 16.

The reason of her being "too new" doesn't seem to be valid, because other new ships like Protectorate Starfighter and the Shadow Caster were pretty successful throughout the tournament.

So, what about Norra? Why didn't she make it?

Norra is good. Don't flog a dead horse.

The 2016 Worlds Tournament is over now.

There was not a single Norra Wexley in the Top 16.

The reason of her being "too new" doesn't seem to be valid, because other new ships like Protectorate Starfighter and the Shadow Caster were pretty successful throughout the tournament.

So, what about Norra? Why didn't she make it?

There really were very few ARCs at all, I think. ARCs just don't seem to have taken off the way Protectorates and Shadow Casters have. There were also very few /sfs.

I would expect that this is down to the fact that top tier players just haven't had the chance to fully assimilate the very new playstyles that these ships demand. They play so differently to almost anything else in the game to date; it's not really surprising that people wouldn't want to risk them at worlds as opposed to things they already know well. I'd expect to seem them a lot more in the upcoming regionals season.

Because people who had committed to taking Rebel anything were playing lists that they'd been practicing the hell out of against all achetypes. You also didn't see many (any?) TIE /sf because they don't fit PalpAces/TripAces lists well. There were some Lancers and Protectorates, but that's because the entire Scum faction is based entirely around offensive capability, which means they settled into a lot of Scum players existing styles already, and were a natural fit for those that enjoyed that style of flying paper planes with nukes on board.

The ARCs will have their day. I wasn't a fan of them outside of Braylen at first, but I flew Norra last night with Ezra crew, alongside Jess Pava and Snap Wexley, and not only had a ball, but did some serious damage. PTL triggering Ezra gave me at least a crit every turn, usually two on top of a pair of hits. I was averaging over 75% of my dice punching out damage each turn. That's not damage you can shrug off easily...

Honestly, it looks like she just wasn't brought (at least by none of the big names on Major Juggler's thread). Neither was the Braylen Stressmule.

Part of it seems to be traditionally Rebel players making the switch to scum (Paul Heaver). Rebels also never really got to explore Wave 8 versions of previous meta lists because Uboats skewed their strategy. With Uboats gone, it looks like those who did play Rebels went for older lists (Han/Jake, Corran/Miranda) with maybe a wave 8 upgrade.

Don't worry, Norra and the ARC will have their full potential revealed during regionals season.

The 2016 Worlds Tournament is over now.

There was not a single Norra Wexley in the Top 16.

The reason of her being "too new" doesn't seem to be valid, because other new ships like Protectorate Starfighter and the Shadow Caster were pretty successful throughout the tournament.

So, what about Norra? Why didn't she make it?

Oh good this again, obviously the Championships have proved you right and every single one of the posters who disagreed with you, created pie charts and graphs and generallly made some very logical points about her ability, should get on here and apologise right now!

Oh good this again, obviously the Championships have proved you right and every single one of the posters who disagreed with you, created pie charts and graphs and generallly made some very logical points about her ability, should get on here and apologise right now!

Honestly these charts and graphs were really helpful to fully understand her ability

So thanks to the creators of those charts and to all people who made logical points!

Some of these points were quite interesting and showed, that Norra can always get significant damage-boost by using her ability.

But obviously my points about her ability weren't so bad either.

If she was only half as good, as some of the people here tried to make her look like, then she would have been much more successful at Worlds, just like the Protectorate Starfigher and the Shadow Caster, which even introduced a new style of play with its mobile arc.

So I am wondering.... if people were able to get used to the whole new concept of using a mobile turret, then why werent they able to practice flying a ship, which basically flies like a Y Wing and has got a front & a back arc, which has been a known concept ever since the introduction of the Firespray years ago? It should be much easier to get used to the ARC in time.

The reason must be... Norra is just not good enough to be competitive. Her ability is depending on too many actions. You can't even use it without TL and Focus, which means you have to take both of this in every round, leaving you hardly and room for other actions. And what about stress? What about bumps? What if you are playing against a professional, who is going to prevent you from taking actions, whenever he can?

I would love Norra, if she had a straight-forward ability just like Fenn Rau.

I brought her to worlds and went 3:3 with her. One of the losses was agains Jeremy Howard who just outflew me, one I have to chalk up to dice (2 blanks in every attack roll for the whole game) and one was pretty much a disqualification (forgot that my K-Wing had the engine failure crit and I slammed after a 2-hard in the last turn of the game. Frank declared the K destroyed because of that, causing me to lose a game that would have been a sure win otherwise).

None of that was a problem with Norra, and in the hands of a more capable pilot (or someone who remembers to use crit tokens) she would have been seen on the final day. She's not half bad, really.

Edit: list

Norra Wexley — ARC-170 29

Push the Limit 3

Tail Gunner 2

R2-D2 4

Alliance Overhaul 0

Ship Total: 38

Biggs Darklighter — X-Wing 25

R4-D6 1

Integrated Astromech 0

Ship Total: 26

Warden Squadron Pilot — K-Wing 23

Autoblaster Turret 2

Extra Munitions 2

Sabine Wren 2

Conner Net 4

Advanced SLAM 2

Ship Total: 35

Thanks for the report! Mind telling us your full list?

Oh good this again, obviously the Championships have proved you right and every single one of the posters who disagreed with you, created pie charts and graphs and generallly made some very logical points about her ability, should get on here and apologise right now!

Honestly these charts and graphs were really helpful to fully understand her ability

So thanks to the creators of those charts and to all people who made logical points!

Some of these points were quite interesting and showed, that Norra can always get significant damage-boost by using her ability.

But obviously my points about her ability weren't so bad either.

If she was only half as good, as some of the people here tried to make her look like, then she would have been much more successful at Worlds, just like the Protectorate Starfigher and the Shadow Caster, which even introduced a new style of play with its mobile arc.

So I am wondering.... if people were able to get used to the whole new concept of using a mobile turret, then why werent they able to practice flying a ship, which basically flies like a Y Wing and has got a front & a back arc, which has been a known concept ever since the introduction of the Firespray years ago? It should be much easier to get used to the ARC in time.

The reason must be... Norra is just not good enough to be competitive. Her ability is depending on too many actions. You can't even use it without TL and Focus, which means you have to take both of this in every round, leaving you hardly and room for other actions. And what about stress? What about bumps? What if you are playing against a professional, who is going to prevent you from taking actions, whenever he can?

I would love Norra, if she had a straight-forward ability just like Fenn Rau.

People have been flying Lancers and Protectorates for months (proxying at first, early Gen-Con release after that). ARC-170s were written off as DOA competitively when they were announced because of how badly they matched up with Triple U-Boats.

If the Deadeye change had happened earlier, I imagine we would have seen more people flying ARC-170s.

just to be clear I wrote off ARCs as DOA when they were announced due to torpscout presence

oh boy oh boy what irony

Norra's lack of success at Worlds is mostly a result of Norra being largely absent from the Worlds. She can't win if she's just not there on the tables. Why that is the case I don't know. All I can say is that I've used her against massively popular Palp defenders on several occasions and won each time.

As for "too many actions required" argument, by that logic Soontir Fel should never have been viable because he's all about getting three actions per turn and dies horribly if he gets blocked or stressed. Truth is that Norra only has focus and target lock by default on her action bar, so she just performs both actions whenever she can. She has to clear stress with a green but it's not a problem because she usually wants to do it anyway to regenerate. She may be blocked of course, but the fact that she can fire from the rear means that she usually moves away from the enemy, not towards him. As a result, blocks don't happen all that often and are usually avoidable. Last but not least, even if Norra does have Vectored Thrusters and wants to use them to get into a better position, she can still use her ability by taking target lock and using her title to turn eye into crit. And if she rolls an eye anyway, she just keeps a target lock for future use (or spends it on re-rolls). There's really nothing particularly complicated or difficult about using her ability.

Sorry I arrived late to this thread, but I had to reply because I've been running a list with Norra locally for the last six games I've played and haven't lost a match or had Norra killed yet ... but I'm sure she'll go down eventually.

I run Norra with PTL, Kyle Katarn, R2-D2, Title, and Vectored Thrusters.

First move I slow boat, PTL with focus and barrel roll then take the stress.

Every move after that (whenever possible) I perform a green to remove stress (and use R2-D2 to regen a shield if needed), use Kyle's ability to gain a free focus from removing stress, then PTL to Target lock, barrel roll, or focus so that I have a stress for the next round and can get the free focus from Kyle.

The only time I don't PTL is if my opponent is using black market slicer tools.

Almost every combat phase I have a focus and a target lock which means I can roll three or four attack dice with my primary, add a focus result with Norra's ability and then spend the focus token to flip those focus results to hits. As a result, most of the time Norra lands between 3 and 5 hits during each attack phase!

If I don't spend the focus on my attack (or have two focus tokens) I can use Norra to add a focus on defense and flip the focus to evades.

Combine that with shield regen from R2-D2 and the free focus from Kyle, and even if your opponent blocks you every round you'll still be able to regen shields and get "at least" a focus.

Sure, if my opponent ever focuses all attacks on Norra she will go down, but that means the other ships in my list can rip them apart while they concentrate on Norra.

As for "too many actions required" argument, by that logic Soontir Fel should never have been viable because he's all about getting three actions per turn and dies horribly if he gets blocked or stressed. Truth is that Norra only has focus and target lock by default on her action bar, so she just performs both actions whenever she can. She has to clear stress with a green but it's not a problem because she usually wants to do it anyway to regenerate. She may be blocked of course, but the fact that she can fire from the rear means that she usually moves away from the enemy, not towards him. As a result, blocks don't happen all that often and are usually avoidable. Last but not least, even if Norra does have Vectored Thrusters and wants to use them to get into a better position, she can still use her ability by taking target lock and using her title to turn eye into crit. And if she rolls an eye anyway, she just keeps a target lock for future use (or spends it on re-rolls). There's really nothing particularly complicated or difficult about using her ability.

Actually Soontir has got an awesome ability, which matches the way he is meant to be played in a perfect way. He can use any action he wants, for example he can reposition twice, or he can take an evade and a boost oand he STILL receives a focus token in the end, which is like a third action to him. Thats pretty awesome!

Taking actions is great. Taking a lot of actions is even better. But you have to be able to take these actions just the way you need them and you have to be flexible with a lot of choices.

If Soontir had a a bad ability like Norra, it would be different: He had to take a focus action and an evade action and spend both tokens to be able to reposition once.

Something like that. Yes, I know that's not a good example, but maybe that makes sense to show, how Norras ability works.

Norra must take the same two actions to be able to use her ability.... so no vectored thrusters or anything like that for her.

And her ability doesn't work if she can't take actions for some reasons (a red maneuver for example).

Soontir still gets a focus token after doing a red maneuver, because of his great ability. See the difference....?

Sorry I arrived late to this thread, but I had to reply because I've been running a list with Norra locally for the last six games I've played and haven't lost a match or had Norra killed yet ... but I'm sure she'll go down eventually.

I run Norra with PTL, Kyle Katarn, R2-D2, Title, and Vectored Thrusters.

First move I slow boat, PTL with focus and barrel roll then take the stress.

Every move after that (whenever possible) I perform a green to remove stress (and use R2-D2 to regen a shield if needed), use Kyle's ability to gain a free focus from removing stress, then PTL to Target lock, barrel roll, or focus so that I have a stress for the next round and can get the free focus from Kyle.

That sounds like a pretty good idea actually, because Norra gets a focus for free, but she needs stress anyways every round.... and she must be really expensive.

I think a lot of people didnt fly Norra because they gave up on Rebels initially. Then after the Uboat nerf, there just wasnt time. I think at regionals you will see the Arcs.

As for "too many actions required" argument, by that logic Soontir Fel should never have been viable because he's all about getting three actions per turn and dies horribly if he gets blocked or stressed. Truth is that Norra only has focus and target lock by default on her action bar, so she just performs both actions whenever she can. She has to clear stress with a green but it's not a problem because she usually wants to do it anyway to regenerate. She may be blocked of course, but the fact that she can fire from the rear means that she usually moves away from the enemy, not towards him. As a result, blocks don't happen all that often and are usually avoidable. Last but not least, even if Norra does have Vectored Thrusters and wants to use them to get into a better position, she can still use her ability by taking target lock and using her title to turn eye into crit. And if she rolls an eye anyway, she just keeps a target lock for future use (or spends it on re-rolls). There's really nothing particularly complicated or difficult about using her ability.

Norra must take the same two actions to be able to use her ability.... so no vectored thrusters or anything like that for her.

And her ability doesn't work if she can't take actions for some reasons (a red maneuver for example).

Soontir still gets a focus token after doing a red maneuver, because of his great ability. See the difference....?

There is more than 1 way to build Norra. See rusted's build above. That gives you ability to b-roll. Also, have seen BB8 lists to some good effect, giving her repositioning and ending stress free.

The Arc is a combolicious ship. It will take time to find the right build for your particular squad. Ships like the Protectorate are limited on what to equip them with, so your only real decision is EPT. It can go on the table and you know exactly how it will fly, which is why it found itself in many squads really fast. It's essentially, plug and play.

Norra must take the same two actions to be able to use her ability.... so no vectored thrusters or anything like that for her.

And her ability doesn't work if she can't take actions for some reasons (a red maneuver for example).

Soontir still gets a focus token after doing a red maneuver, because of his great ability. See the difference....?

You quoted me but apparently failed to read what you quoted. So let me rephrase it for you:

1. No, Norra does not need to use the same two actions to use her ability. All she needs is to have a target lock. You just turn the eye into crit using your title. So you TL and barrel roll and still take advantage of it. For that matter, on some occasions you have your TL unused from the previous turns because for all sorts of reasons you were unable or unwilling to use it (say, target bumped into you, got our of range, got out of arc or your roll was so bad you decided to save your TL for defense but didn't need to use it after all).

2. Norra doesn't perform red maneuvers. She. Simply. Doesn't. Over the course of the last 4 games I maybe performed a red maneuver 3 times and every single time was when no enemy was anywhere in range of her so her ability couldn't trigger anyway.

3. Soontir is stressed 90% of the time. The other 10% is if he fcks up and gets blocked. You don't take Soontir so that he gets focus after a red maneuver. He very seldom does K-turns. In fact, his dial is usually limited to greens.

I think a massive part of your problem is that you think of Norra in terms of a traditional fighter that flies towards the enemy, passes him, K-turns and so on. That's not how Norra works and if you fly her like that you miss the point. Norra spends 80% of the time firing from the rear arc. She doesn't turn after the enemy, the enemy turns after her. She doesn't get blocked, because the enemy is behind her. Barrel roll is useful (if not necessary) and the price of doing so isn't huge because thanks to her title you can still use a single eye result even if you took no focus. You don't need Kyle either. Just take Tail Gunner so you can make up for the loss of a red die when firing from behind and you'll never have to worry about turning around and missing actions.

I've gone about 9-0 with my triple ARCs against Defenders, Rey+Poe, Dash and Scum lists and in them Norra does most of the work. She's tanky enough that focusing her is a bad idea and puts out a lot of damage.

I've been trying to puzzle out what makes them so effective but the answer is a combination of

1. High HP - 9 HP is really quite a lot for a small base ship, especially when you can regenerate.

2. Rear arcs - The rear arc means you very seldom miss a turn of shooting, and can fly in ways arc-dependant ships cannot.

3. Consistent damage - With M9-G8 you have extremely consistent damage from Norra and Wingman (Braylen or Thane), especially in the rear arc.

4. C3P0/R2D2 Norra is nearly unkillable in the late game in a 1v1, unless the enemy has a way to roll 4 hits reliably or agility modification.

The only thing really holding them back are TLTs at the moment, I think.

OP: you still haven't actually tried flying Norra, have you?

Until you do, your entire argument comes down to 'I don't think she's good'. And you still might not think she's good, but then you will have some evidence.

I find Soontir Fel to be terrible. He dies after 2 ships shoot at him whenever I've flown him. Is that because he's a poor pilot? Nope, it's because I suck at flying Interceptors.

I have found ARCs generally to be excellent, probably because they suit my flying style, and Norra is the best ARC.

I find Soontir Fel to be terrible. He dies after 2 ships shoot at him whenever I've flown him. Is that because he's a poor pilot? Nope, it's because I suck at flying Interceptors.

Sigh...yup, that would be me as well. I need to read up on the Interceptors 101 flying manual.

I find Soontir Fel to be terrible. He dies after 2 ships shoot at him whenever I've flown him. Is that because he's a poor pilot? Nope, it's because I suck at flying Interceptors.

Sigh...yup, that would be me as well. I need to read up on the Interceptors 101 flying manual.

Interceptor Flying 101

A hefty thousand page tome.

The first page says '1: Do not get shot at. Ever. 2: If you do, trust in the might of the Emperor to save you.'

The rest of the book is blank.

Last time i reported, i had played 9 games with my ARCs, and lost 2. I am now at 12 games with my ARCs, and won all 3 games, against Scum Aces, Palp Aces, and Dengaroo respectively.

ARCs couldnt have a better matchup than Palp Aces, i'll be honest. You know what's great that i realized? because you don't need to swing your ships around and focus on the Aces, because rear arc, you can charge the Palp Shuttle while making the Aces sweat out your rear arc. Norra and Biggs tack damage on the shuttle while Braylen sets up his stress on the aces, the shuttle dies, and your squad is free to assault 2 palpless, horribly stressed aces with a ship that keeps them stressed, a ship that soaks up all their shots, and a ship that they can't kill that also completely annihilates them.

The only bad matchup in my local meta atm is Ketsu/Kath, because tractor beams suck for ARCs. Not that Ketsu would tractor Norra or Braylen when they could tractor Biggs instead, but still. The only hope is killing Ketsu early on(which you can totally do, ARCs very much have the firepower to put at least 7 damage on ketsu turn 1) before they can kill Biggs and start tractoring your ARCs.

I recently played against the Norra below and came away VERY impressed. Gave my PS6 Defenders a fit:

4 Action Norra (No Stress):

PTL

Kyle

BB-8

Engine

Title

41pts

This has to be one one of the most maneuverable ships in the game, gets 4 actions (focus + target lock or focus x2, boost and barrel roll EVERY turn and ends up with no stress). Also pretty hard to block.

Reveal green > BB8 Roll > PTL (TL, Focus, Boost) > Stress > Green Move > Kyle Focus > Remaining Action

I've seen Norra in Biggs lists and Norra-Dash do really well. No green turns isn't a huge issue when you have a rear arc, and against Palp mods being able to sometimes get four hits at R2/five at R1 is often a lot more valuable than consistently getting 2-3. She's a terror with R2-D2 and gunner and can solo almost any other small ship in that config. Don't write her off.