Hello! just wanted to know people's opinions on the balance of the game as worlds just ended and HotR just came out and wave 10 is very close. I will talk about how zuckuss overclocked is overpowered in a specific scenario, jumpmaster's cost and why other factions aren't as good. Then, propose some possible directions and encourage discussion of these issues.

Edit: Reddit has a similar discussion, overclocked is also a force to be reckoned with, arguably better than zuckuss, as the infinite focus works to make offense and defense die 25% better.

TL;DR: Dengar with zuckuss and overclocked is a very, very strong synergy with almost no downside, specially when many attacks per turn (snap shot incoming) can happen, and the infinite focus tokens work on offense and the sweet 2 agility defense. It comes as close to 3 pure damage as possible. A limit to once per turn to overclocked/zuckuss may be able to bring down their power a notch, but even then jumpmaster looks undercosted and may have warped the metagame, making FFG powercreep future releases. Notable opposing ships, such as /x7 Ryad or TLT-3-CPO Miranda are good, but not as OP. Wave 10 comes with sweet large ships for Rebels and Imperial, but will it make enough of a difference?

UPDATE:

To make the point more clear, some lists are left as food for thought, and with this potential combo only to get better when more focus-related cards get released in the next year or two:

1) Dengar Unleashed:

51 Dengar, Decoy, Operation Specialist, Overclocked R4, Punishing One.

48 2x Syndicate Thug, TLT.

In this build, Dengar loses Zuckuss, but gains a lot of toughness and some consistent TLT damage. Decoy allows Dengar to shoot last, with 4 TLT's to potentially miss and give Dengar the so-beloved focus.

A variation is

Dengar, Decoy, Zuckuss, Overclocked R4, Punishing one.

HWK-290 + TLT + Operations Specialist

Makes the focus more consistent but the ships have less hp.

2) Dengaress:

51 Dengar, Snap Shot, Zuckuss, Overclocked R4, Glitterstim, Punishing One.

49 Assajj Ventress, Snap Shot, Operations Specialist, BMST, Burnout SLAM, Shadow Caster, Gyroscopic.

This is a bruiser-control squad. Just go get into melee with both ships in range 2 of each other. This is based on triggering and missing snap shots, but snap shots could be swapped for squad leader on dengar or decoy on assajj.

3) Focus Factory DengarLob:

48 Dengar, Attani, Zuckuss, Overclocked R4, Punishing One.

36 Palob, Attani, TLT, Operations Specialist, Moldy Crow, Stealth Device

16 Kaa'To, Attani

I doubt this list will be good. Only to showcase some focus synergies.

Overall Operations Specialist does open some doors to exploit Dengar-Overclock-Zuckuss, in that you now have your whole fleet dishing out even more damage than dengar alone. The TLT build adds considerably more HP, while the Assajj one has two beefy ships, but may trigger less consistently unless you are good at placing them at range 1 or enemies.

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Post:

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Personally, i think zuckuss and dengar/manaroo are issues to take into consideration. Nand's list is brilliant, as it almost maximizes dengar's offenses and manaroo's defenses at an incredible 97 points, of which countermeasures and glitterstim are a waste in my opinion (you already have infinite focus tokens). All in all, 92 points for what could easily pass as a 100 point squad.

Zuckuss is insane in that it works as many times as you want per turn. It is a big problem if you don't care about stress (jumpmaster/hound's tooth) and if you can attack many times per turn (dengar, snap shot). Basically, zuckuss is balanced as long as it isn't aboard dengar (snap shot will make this more insane, for a potential of 3 activations per turn with zero cost). I propose a very simple fix: Zuckuss can only be used once per turn.

But an even worse offender than multi-activation-0-downside zuckuss is jumpmaster. 25 points for 9hp and 2 agility defense dice, one of the best dials in the game, ept, very useful slots and two very good pilots sounds ok in paper, because of the 2 attack and the 12 point title to make it have 3. In my opinion, if you add 2 points to their cost, lists would still look about the same and have about the same power. The proof is that brobots are irrelevant, where they used to be strong, along many other squads. Maybe we will never be able to pinpoint exactly what makes jumpmasters insane, but in practice dengar with zuckuss/overclocked (and even better with snap shot) is a bit overpowered: 2 or 3 attacks that are heavily modified, infinite focus (that makes your attack even better, and your 2 agility shine) and stress that doesn't affect you. Manaroo's infinite range makes manaroo good but not broken. Maybe undercosted, but not overpowered.

Now, regarding what a lot of people believe that TIE/x7 is broken... it is not. The only slightly unfair combo is ryad+ tie/x7, which is a bit (~1 point) undercosted at 32pts. Vessery isn't as good and glaives neither. This isn't as big of an issue because rebels also have miranda doni, which comes at 38 points with TLT, C-3PO and Long-range scanners which is very, very good. It is basically what regen millenium falcon wanted to be. x7 is definitely one of the strongest cards in the imperial side, but when compared to scum, it is lacking. People complain about defenders and palp, or that imperials only have few must have upgrades. In my opinion, palp should cost ~7, a bit overcosted at 8. Barebones Lambda is so bad it only got top 8 because of the sheer number of palp def players (top 4 was sensor jammered lambda with 1 def and 1 tie/fo).

How should a game be balanced? When you have very strong units, either nerf strong interactions, nerf units or bring up the power level of low power units. Despite what is currently happening, once we take wave 10 into consideration: FFG is bringing x-wing into the right direction (upgrades are becoming a little bit less cross-faction dependent, there are armies in a box with Ghost and HotR which make the game cheaper for beginners, and bringing up the power level of rebel and imperial large ships with Ghost, MF fix, U-wing, Upsilon). Did FFG make any mistakes? I think Punishing One was a mistake. It has brought the power level up, so now they must play catch up with other factions. And to be fair, one mistake in an otherwise polished and balanced game is acceptable, as the synergy comes into play with more than just punishing one.

Will wave 10 be enough to compete against Dengar-zuckuss-overclocked? Fixed MF and Upsilon look good, but lets hope it changes the tierlist as it currently stands. The tierlist looks like this, from my perspective:

Tier 0.9:

Dengar-zuckuss-overclocked: A strange alignment of stars makes this particular ship able to modify dice many times per turn both on offense and defense, and so many modifiers it makes palp look like a joke. The only downside is that you don't get focus while stressed (your dial doesn't even care). But i heard there was someone called Manaroo... It no longer sounds funny when put into words, ain't it?

Tier 1:

Ryad + TIE/x7: The most maneuverable ship in the galaxy comes with two tokens per turn.

Miranda + TLT + C-3PO: DIshes out more damage than Fat Han, while regenerating better than Fat Han. For 11 points cheaper. It is a mid-cost excellent filler to pair up with a beefy ghost or falcon.

Tier 2:

Palp looks with envy, fueling his dark side. A measly 1 point scum and a 1 point mech are sooo much better. Palp's ship is also bad. Lambda is only useful with Engine or Jammer, otherwise 29pts is too expensive for such an irrelevant ship. Manaroo laughs at Lambda and takes the crown as best support.

Corran Horn. Good players see the potential but, ultimately, it is too expensive and too filmsy to make an impact.

Tier waiting-to-get-fixed(again?):

Tie bomber (my complain with ordnance is range. Range 5 would make them competitive), Tie interceptor (an x/7 equivalent would be good), Slave I (even with fearlessness it got so far because it was piloted by Nathan, not because of the ship), Lambda (it would be ok with free engine upgrade or free sensor jammer, so something like /x1), Tie Punisher.

T-65 X-wing (we really need them S-foils), HWK-290, B-wing (but not 'Rebels' overpowered), E-wing (needs /x7 equiv).

Kihraxz (it copies X-wing, which is not a good ship. Maybe a free boost action?), StarViper (Costs too much, and can't evade. /x7 treatment). I would say Mist Hunter, but it comes with 4 good cards, so no. Can brobots make a comeback? Would 3 naked brobots be overpowered?

I completely disagree that Zuckuss is any more broken than TIE x7s. If you have the token-stacking of x7s, you need the power of Zuckuss to break through. If you have the offensive power of Zuckuss, you need token-stacking to survive. Now, I'm not saying these are the only offensive and defensive solutions, but my point is that you can't take out one without taking out the other. These are two sides of the same coin; light and dark; yin and yang. (I'm exaggerating, slightly.) But Zuckuss is not a problem. He's just good.

EDIT: And as I recall, there was a stress-meta last season. Why not use those on Manaroo? Now Dengar and Manaroo are both without actions.

I completely disagree that Zuckuss is any more broken than TIE x7s. If you have the token-stacking of x7s, you need the power of Zuckuss to break through. If you have the offensive power of Zuckuss, you need token-stacking to survive. Now, I'm not saying these are the only offensive and defensive solutions, but my point is that you can't take out one without taking out the other. These are two sides of the same coin; light and dark; yin and yang. (I'm exaggerating, slightly.) But Zuckuss is not a problem. He's just good.

Zuckuss is ok, and I'm not complaining about zuckuss per-se. I'm complaining about zuckuss in combination with dengar and overclocked. Zuckuss at 1/turn would be a nerf to dengar-zuckuss interacion, not zuckuss per se. Zuckuss is fine in party bus, but not in multi-attack dengar, because, in dice terms, dengar is throwing the statistical equivalent of 8+ dice, or 11+ with snap shot (totally made these numbers up, but i hope it gets the point across).

Will bold the OP for further clarification.

About /x7: I think that aboard ryad it is very good. But not so glaive or vessery, but in delta's as second place. Sure, it gives you focus+evade, making them hard to kill, but you can always focus fire (never let them get spread damage). And i think it is a very good card, and that triple defenders are better than palp defenders, and might have made it to top4 or finals if there were more players fielding triple defenders. But a 1/turn Nand's list is as good, and Miranda Doni + TLT + 3-CPO with Fixed Falcon or Ghost or whatever is also very good, all three at about the same power level (tier 1). As it currently stands, that particular dengaroo interaction (it is more of dengar's power, but the simplest fix is a 'nerf' to zuckuss) makes this dengar even better than ryad/x7 and miranda, most of which comes from successive zuckuss activations. And competiing at that level having basically 8 points to spare is a bit too much. Once per turn zuckuss would bring dengaroo to tier 1, along /x7 and miranda. And it will still allow zuckuss to punch through the stack (imagine if the stack was once per attack... it is exactly the equivalent we are discussing here, as zuckuss is basically an anti-stack per attack).

Also, attani mind link makes scum fighters 'stack' tokens, too. Say, 4x Concond Dawn Veteran (Attani, Autothrusters) for cheaper than /x7 deltas. Or even that world's list with Fenn, Teroch, Manaroo, all mindlinked.

while I agree with Budgernaut, his avatar makes it impossible not to suspect ulterior motives for his point of view

also holy ****, it's a proper thesis!

gotta say, though, I don't get why palp is worse when he completely curbstomps any potential damage dengaroo can put out

assuming you're not shooting dengaroo (why the **** would you if he has arc on you?), you're guaranteed to reduce his one attack by 2 damage. GUARANTEED, regardless of what zuckuss does

"oh no, it's a 1 point crew neutralizing an 8 point crew" doesn't hold any water considering where you're finding zuckuss. In this case, either on a 34 point ship with PS 2 that can (with effort) be arcdodged or on a ship that can't be arc-dodged but is instead its entire list's damage output

Personally, I think that the game is a great state of balance right now. in the worlds thread, Majorjugglar showed us that 33 out of the 40 ships currently in xwing were represented on day 2 of worlds. Other games DREAM of having that percentage of their options utilized in competitive play. Now, this could be because the meta hasn't settled from the Deadeye nerf. But I dont really see it settling anytime soon. Especially with HOTR just being released and wave 10 in the next couple months. HOTR specifically opens up a few builds that really put the hurt on Dengaroo. Rebel Regen for example really doesn't mind dengaroo especially Poe with his dice mods. Pair that with lets say Rey and her crazy maneuvering that dengaroo can't even match and he is going to be in some trouble.

Also, I am really confused. Was Dengaroo really a surprise to people? It has been around for quite some time.

All that said, This was an amazingly written post. So, take your upvote sir.

No offense but when you start discussing snap shot as a good addition to dengaroo and state that countermeasures+glitterstim are bad I discount your argument as not being particularly informed outside of watching the most recent world's tournament.

Don't get me wrong, zuckuss is a ****. That said he's really not overpowered, and if there was a ship to complain about zuckuss on it would be the bossk party bus, not dengar.

Honestly I don't consider dengaroo to be the strongest list out there right now even. Sure it won worlds but as others have said in the dengaroo thread it also lost worlds a whole lot repeatedly.

It's good but not broken good and it doesn't limit list building in the same way that prenerf phantoms did or torp masters did. It's a card you should consider but I can't think of a ship that says 'oh no better not run this, zuckuss exists'.

Stop just bringing two ships to fight Dengaroo. It withers against TIE Swarms or multiple ships, since Dengar and therefore Msr Zuckass, can only return fire once per round. Fire on it 5 or 6 times, and D&Z can just look out the window at all the laser blasts coming in.

Fly effectively and keep as many ships out of the arc as possible, stay spread out but in range. When new things come out, just because the tactics that worked before don't work any longer doesn't mean the new thing is overpowered. It just means we need to adapt.

Stop just bringing two ships to fight Dengaroo. It withers against TIE Swarms or multiple ships, since Dengar and therefore Msr Zuckass, can only return fire once per round. Fire on it 5 or 6 times, and D&Z can just look out the window at all the laser blasts coming in.

Fly effectively and keep as many ships out of the arc as possible, stay spread out but in range. When new things come out, just because the tactics that worked before don't work any longer doesn't mean the new thing is overpowered. It just means we need to adapt.

Adapt and overcome.

I think it's just Manaroo, lol.

In the same light, Palpatine is a problem for ANY ship that can stack AGI Evades Focus Autothrusters etc.

Dengaroo is probably not broken, just incredibly good and efficient. However, it is an incredibly NPE list to come up against. It removes a lot of standard x-wing gameplay from a match. Primary turrets. Constant dice mods. Modding your opponents dice. It very much feels like a dice-fest stacked in Dengaroo's favour. I for one don't want the game to go in the direction of 'oh well this card says you can't do that, or that, and this one says I get those aaaaaaand your dead. Good game.

Bring back the dogfighting days!!

you're guaranteed to reduce his one attack by 2 damage.

"oh no, it's a 1 point crew neutralizing an 8 point crew"

The problem is not the 'armor', but the 'armor reduction' zuckuss brings. When it is the first attack, then yes, both even out. But the dengar can shoot back or snap shot you, and palp won't do much. Said as a joke that 1pt zuckuss and 1pt overclock overshadowed palp, but it is more of a combination of both crew and ships. Once all synergies kick in, Nand's dengaroo (which i'd remove glitter and maybe change lone for snapshot) will modify more dice per turn, both on offense and defense, making dengar's attack actually count, and his defense also count.

Personally, I think that the game is a great state of balance right now. in the worlds thread, Majorjugglar showed us that 33 out of the 40 ships currently in xwing were represented on day 2 of worlds.

I agree, and FFG has only made one mistake, which is punishing one. Yes, other games dream about having only one mistake in four years. And FFG is learning from their mistakes, which i also applaud. My only complaint is that Punishing One has upped the power level at least by a bit.

No offense but when you start discussing snap shot as a good addition to dengaroo and state that countermeasures+glitterstim are bad I discount your argument as not being particularly informed outside of watching the most recent world's tournament.

Don't get me wrong, zuckuss is a ****. That said he's really not overpowered, and if there was a ship to complain about zuckuss on it would be the bossk party bus, not dengar.

Honestly I don't consider dengaroo to be the strongest list out there right now even. Sure it won worlds but as others have said in the dengaroo thread it also lost worlds a whole lot repeatedly.

It's good but not broken good and it doesn't limit list building in the same way that prenerf phantoms did or torp masters did. It's a card you should consider but I can't think of a ship that says 'oh no better not run this, zuckuss exists'.

Zuckuss by itself is fine. The whole point of complaining about zuckuss was about zuckuss inside a dengar that allowed zuckuss to be activated 2 or 3 (with snap) times per turn. Basically, the complaint is in the synergy, not the individuals themselves. Party bus makes up for getting stress by overstressing and over-ionizing itself so it mitigates the 2-3 disadvantages into a single one. But dengar doesn't care about stress (good dial, and gets focus from manaroo), so basically not only zero disadvantage, but many zuckuss-advantages per turn. Countermeasures is a bit expensive and maybe fine. Glitterstim is basically an infinite focus, and this Dengar already has infinite focus, so I don't understand why it would be a bad thing to not have glitter. This list can, at around 10 extra points, afford it, with an ample initiative margin. I think this particular dengar build is the dangerous thing and not necessarily with manaroo. Maybe a dengar and other ships that can maximize the point efficiency, in a list yet to be seen.

I think Dengar with zuckuss and overclocked (and maybe snapshot for a 'measly' 2 attack) is a notch above the most notable competition, like x7 ryad and regen miranda. Maybe not with Manaroo, but in some shape or form it is, in essence, a ship that gets multiple palpatine-like effects per turn.

Stop just bringing two ships to fight Dengaroo. It withers against TIE Swarms or multiple ships, since Dengar and therefore Msr Zuckass, can only return fire once per round. Fire on it 5 or 6 times, and D&Z can just look out the window at all the laser blasts coming in.

Fly effectively and keep as many ships out of the arc as possible, stay spread out but in range. When new things come out, just because the tactics that worked before don't work any longer doesn't mean the new thing is overpowered. It just means we need to adapt.

Yes, it is not all doom and gloom. I also thought about a swarm or and ordnance-heavy list, or anything that could capitalize on quickly shutting down Dengar as the best bet. If that is the case, and makes swarms and missile heavy lists make a comeback, then it is of course healthy. But i think it deserves at the very least monitoring. Take other games for example, where a single squad/deck is overpowered, it warps the metagame. As in, if you had to run swarms or bombers just to counter dengar, it wouldn't be healthy.

First of all, Zuckuss and 4-LOM were both under-costed purposely by the designers as an intended 'fix' for scum crew options, particularly to power up the YV-666 due to it not doing well competitively.

The jumpmaster was obviously under-costed due to previous large-based 2 attack ships not doing well competitively (the other YT generics).

So yeah, no surprise that someone found a combo to take advantage of these 'point efficient' cards

I agree with Phild0----the real problem is Manaroo's unlimited range ability. Palpatine is a similar problem

And anyone that doesn't believe X-7's aren't just a little too good hasn't played with/against enough defenders (also, the fact that NOBODY takes TIE/D title is VERY telling as to the balance of those two particular titles).

Having said all that, the game is in a pretty good place balance-wise (in a general sort of way), but of course, there's always room for improvement!

Edit: I would say the biggest problem right now is the fact that power creep, particularly in the form of cards that encourage high Pilot Skill (Hotshot co-pilot is the latest of these unnecessary offenders) is just pushing low pilot skill generics (mainly those in forward-arc ships with no turret access) farther and farther out of competitive use.

I think it's just Manaroo, lol.

In the same light, Palpatine is a problem for ANY ship that can stack AGI Evades Focus Autothrusters etc.

^

Dengaroo can only take advantage of Zuckuss due to Manaroo. Otherwise the damage output is awful. Hence why most people say to got for Manaroo first, unless you have a list that can do lots of damage to Dengar to overwhelm him.

Zuckuss runs into BBBBX and he ain't worth squat.

Whatever's carrying him will probably struggle to repel firepower of that magnitude as well.

I can tell you don't have any experience flying with or against Dengaroo. Know how I know? You think glitterstim and countermeasures are wasted points. They are both an important part of this build. I respect that you put some time and thought into the post, but I get the feeling much of it is based upon conjecture.

I think it's just Manaroo, lol.

In the same light, Palpatine is a problem for ANY ship that can stack AGI Evades Focus Autothrusters etc.

I'd agree with this. Palpatine offers the Imps with a way to backup insane defenses of their ships even further and Manaroo offers to add to the offense of Scum that they already have loads of. Both of which have abilities with no range limit, which a lot of people believe should be limited. Sabine is Rebels only (pls correct me if I'm wrong) unlimited range support and it only works on bombs, which can be deadly, but not every round deadly.

Even though there are other support ship options in every faction, not much can compete with unlimited range which makes them a staple in most lists in each faction.

Not crying OP on this, but it's what makes Dengaroo really click, not Zuckuss.

Falveryn, you keep saying Glitterstim was superfluous on Dengar, but I don't think that's the case. Dice can go bad or you can get out-flown and see Manaroo get stressed or go down too soon. At that point, Dengar likely has a stack of stress and can't get actions. Glitterstim is your last-ditch effort to deal some damage. You can't count on Manaroo always being there for Dengar. Really, though, I think Glitterstim is a matter of preference. I can see why one would drop it from the list, especially if you were really confident in your flying abilities. But I maintain that Glitterstim is a good failsafe for those "oops" moments when Manaroo can't get you the focus.

I think it's just Manaroo, lol.

In the same light, Palpatine is a problem for ANY ship that can stack AGI Evades Focus Autothrusters etc.

Palpatine is 1 dice modifier. Stacked defender is 2 extra modifiers per turn. Dengaroo (supported with manaroo, as the defender is supported by palp) can make a lot of modifications per turn. In every single attack or defense, he gets infinite focus activations. In this case, suppose defender attack dengar and dengar attacks defender. That would be 2 attacks for dengar and 1 defense for dengar, which means ~3 focus tokens (just from overclocked). Now, add in zuckuss effect, which is a pseudo palp. at 2 attacks per turn, zuckuss can make you reroll all your evades and focuses, which will count more than just one palp changing evade to blank.

Dengaroo is probably not broken, just incredibly good and efficient. However, it is an incredibly NPE list to come up against. It removes a lot of standard x-wing gameplay from a match. Primary turrets. Constant dice mods. Modding your opponents dice. It very much feels like a dice-fest stacked in Dengaroo's favour. I for one don't want the game to go in the direction of 'oh well this card says you can't do that, or that, and this one says I get those aaaaaaand your dead. Good game.

Bring back the dogfighting days!!

Precisely, constant dice mods, dice fest, that is why i compared to palp. And this list outclasses palp at what palp/stacked defenders are best: modifying dice.

Stop just bringing two ships to fight Dengaroo. It withers against TIE Swarms or multiple ships, since Dengar and therefore Msr Zuckass, can only return fire once per round. Fire on it 5 or 6 times, and D&Z can just look out the window at all the laser blasts coming in.

Fly effectively and keep as many ships out of the arc as possible, stay spread out but in range. When new things come out, just because the tactics that worked before don't work any longer doesn't mean the new thing is overpowered. It just means we need to adapt.

Zuckuss is insane in that it works as many times as you want per turn. It is a big problem if you don't care about stress (jumpmaster/hound's tooth) and if you can attack many times per turn (dengar, snap shot). Basically, zuckuss is balanced as long as it isn't aboard dengar (snap shot will make this more insane, for a potential of 3 activations per turn with zero cost). I propose a very simple fix: Zuckuss can only be used once per turn.

So...don't have all of your ships in dengar's arc, then just...don't shoot with whoever he would revenge shot at. Now zuckuss only gets to go off once.

But an even worse offender than multi-activation-0-downside zuckuss is jumpmaster. 25 points for 9hp and 2 agility defense dice, one of the best dials in the game, ept, very useful slots and two very good pilots sounds ok in paper, because of the 2 attack and the 12 point title to make it have 3. In my opinion, if you add 2 points to their cost, lists would still look about the same and have about the same power. The proof is that brobots are irrelevant, where they used to be strong, along many other squads.

Remind me again how many "overpowered" contracted scouts we saw at worlds? I know of Marcel's uboat list that made the cut. That's pretty much it, at least as far as ones that made it to high level tables. Dunno if there were more that didn't do well. Hardly a problem. 2 points is a lot for a generic pilot. Look how often we see generic falcons.

The scout has nothing to do iwth brobots. Brobots were one of the lists that could actually do well against uboats. I think the bigger deal is people getting bored with brobots and flying other lists (such as dengaroo). They're still actually a good list.

Maybe we will never be able to pinpoint exactly what makes jumpmasters insane, but in practice dengar with zuckuss/overclocked (and even better with snap shot) is a bit overpowered: 2 or 3 attacks that are heavily modified, infinite focus (that makes your attack even better, and your 2 agility shine) and stress that doesn't affect you. Manaroo's infinite range makes manaroo good but not broken. Maybe undercosted, but not overpowered.

You won't see snap shot on dengaroo. Lone wolf is a huge part of what makes the list work, increasing your offense and making you vastly more survivable than otherwise. And the issue is the combo of dengar, zuckuss, overclocked, and manaroo. Manaroo being the key that makes the whole list work. If you've ever played against the list, if you kill manaroo dengar isn't really scary at all. he can still zuckuss defense dice, but has no focus to get reliable good hits. And without the focuses for defenses he falls over quick. If manaroo had a range limit, now she has to stay close to him to make the list work, and to keep lone wolf AND manaroo, you're required to keep the two of them at exactly range 3 of each other, which gets a WHOLE lot harder, especially if you're in the asteroids.

The only possibly "broken" thing in the list is the combination of everything together. But to be fair, you're playing basically a single 50+ point ship with a 40+ point support ship doing nothing but passing tokens against your opponent's 100 point list. Dengar in that list SHOULD be really good, you're basically spending 100 points on him. If dengar dies, manaroo is usually an easy kill. If manaroo dies, dengar falls over.

Now, regarding what a lot of people believe that TIE/x7 is broken... it is not. The only slightly unfair combo is ryad+ tie/x7, which is a bit (~1 point) undercosted at 32pts. Vessery isn't as good and glaives neither. This isn't as big of an issue because rebels also have miranda doni, which comes at 38 points with TLT, C-3PO and Long-range scanners which is very, very good. It is basically what regen millenium falcon wanted to be. x7 is definitely one of the strongest cards in the imperial side, but when compared to scum, it is lacking. People complain about defenders and palp, or that imperials only have few must have upgrades. In my opinion, palp should cost ~7, a bit overcosted at 8. Barebones Lambda is so bad it only got top 8 because of the sheer number of palp def players (top 4 was sensor jammered lambda with 1 def and 1 tie/fo).

Ryad at 32 points really isn't much better than vessery or glaives or any other defender. She really just gets a few extra kturn choices, which is good, but not a HUGE change. What makes ryad good is ptl with a green k-turn. x7 defenders are ALL extremely good becuase they reliably have focus/evade every round backed by 3 agility and 6 health. Realistically, they're good enough that the x7 title really didn't need a -2 point cost to go with the free evades. No way palp is overcosted at 8 points. I'm not sure I agree with the people that say he's completely overcosted, but he's seen in a huge percentage of imperial lists, which is an indication of being really really good. Kinda like x7. You can make arguments whether palp is overpowered or undercosted or not, but there's no way he's undercosted.

Will wave 10 be enough to compete against Dengar-zuckuss-overclocked? Fixed MF and Upsilon look good, but lets hope it changes the tierlist as it currently stands. The tierlist looks like this, from my perspective:

God Tier:

Dengar-zuckuss-overclocked: A strange alignment of stars makes this particular ship able to modify dice many times per turn both on offense and defense, and so many modifiers it makes palp look like a joke. The only downside is that you don't get focus while stressed (your dial doesn't even care). But i heard there was someone called Manaroo... It no longer sounds funny when put into words, ain't it?

You can ALREADY compete against dengaroo. X7 defenders are actaully really good against it. It's notable that the winning list didn't have to PLAY against any int he top 16 cut, though he may or may not have before hand. I've also beat it with my fenn rau, slaver, manaroo list I've been playing a lot lately. The biggest part of dealing with dengaroo is how you approach it.

Tier 1:

Ryad + TIE/x7: The most maneuverable ship in the galaxy comes with two tokens per turn.

Miranda + TLT + C-3PO: DIshes out more damage than Fat Han, while regenerating better than Fat Han. For 11 points cheaper. It is a mid-cost excellent filler to pair up with a beefy ghost or falcon.

Tier 2:

Palp looks with envy, fueling his dark side. A measly 1 point scum and a 1 point mech are sooo much better. Palp's ship is also bad. Lambda is only useful with Engine or Jammer, otherwise 29pts is too expensive for such an irrelevant ship. Manaroo laughs at Lambda and takes the crown as best support.

Corran Horn. Good players see the potential but, ultimately, it is too expensive and too filmsy to make an impact.

The most common ryad lists ALSO have palp. Not always (I've personally preferred triple defenders to palp defenders, but palp defenders are also really good). There were 6 imperial lists in the top 16 at worlds. 5 of them had palp. 4 had ryad (and palp was in all but 1 of the lists with ryad).

I've thought about what would hurt the list the most and the answer I found is kinda funnny. Ion dengar and stress manaroo. Problem with it is that you have to build up ion tokens on dengar or use ion pulse missiles/bow tie mines. A list for giggles that trys to do both is a double imperial firespray list.

kath scarlet

lone wolf

ion pulse missiles

mangler cannon

guidance chips

intel agent

Boba fett

VI

ion pulse missiles

conner net

guidance chips

navigator

slave 1

extra munitions

keep kath and boba at range from one another to use lone wolf but still able to use intel agent on dengar, double lock dengar so he can only get rid of one TL, hopefully try to keep him ion for around 3 turns which depending on his location can walk him off the board or force his move and after kath using her ion on dengar can hunt manaroo to stress her or burn her down. But its the imperial firespray and has many problems of its own like a decent dial but not easily able to turn around and a wee-overcosted. But its heathy enough to surive a turn against dengar at least

I think it's just Manaroo, lol.

In the same light, Palpatine is a problem for ANY ship that can stack AGI Evades Focus Autothrusters etc.

Palpatine is 1 dice modifier. Stacked defender is 2 extra modifiers per turn. Dengaroo (supported with manaroo, as the defender is supported by palp) can make a lot of modifications per turn. In every single attack or defense, he gets infinite focus activations. In this case, suppose defender attack dengar and dengar attacks defender. That would be 2 attacks for dengar and 1 defense for dengar, which means ~3 focus tokens (just from overclocked). Now, add in zuckuss effect, which is a pseudo palp. at 2 attacks per turn, zuckuss can make you reroll all your evades and focuses, which will count more than just one palp changing evade to blank.

Dengaroo is probably not broken, just incredibly good and efficient. However, it is an incredibly NPE list to come up against. It removes a lot of standard x-wing gameplay from a match. Primary turrets. Constant dice mods. Modding your opponents dice. It very much feels like a dice-fest stacked in Dengaroo's favour. I for one don't want the game to go in the direction of 'oh well this card says you can't do that, or that, and this one says I get those aaaaaaand your dead. Good game.

Bring back the dogfighting days!!

Precisely, constant dice mods, dice fest, that is why i compared to palp. And this list outclasses palp at what palp/stacked defenders are best: modifying dice.

Kill or stress manaroo. now all dengar has is lone wolf.

Palp is a force multiplier. he gets paired up with ships that ALREADY have 2 tokens, and gives them ANOTHER free conversion, making it even harder to hit an already incredibly-hard-to-hit ship.

To all people saying i think glitterstim is not critical, it is not because i was talking about the specific Nand's dengaroo build, or even dengaroo. I am complaining about dengar-zuckuss-overclocked multi-attack modifier-fest. If i were to build dengaroo, i'd add glitterstim because i have a lot of extra points. Heck, point-inefficient countermeasures too. Because jumpmaster is undercosted (but that is another issue).

Yes, you can get manaroo in a bad spot/ burst down. Or you can simply not fly manaroo and get another glitter as pseudo focus-giver or get another focus-giver if there is or will be. I just would take a second look at glitterstim if the points were tighter i guess is what i was trying to say. Because having 10 wasted points is obviously bad, and glitterstim at 8 point bid is better than no glitter at 10 point bid.

Basically, Dengar is 49 points or 51 points with glitter. And maybe another focus-giver or no focus giver is better in another scenario. I think the criticisms come when assuming the point of the post is dengaroo, which the post is not, it is about the synergy within dengar itself.

And even if right now it wasn't slightly op, it is likely someone will find a better 49 point complement (or 51 if you add glitter) in the future, not because Nand won the worlds or because dengaroo, but because dengar + another thing.

And also, if there is a counter, it doesn't mean the build is not or can be op. An unhealthy metagame is exactly that, an overpowered build and the counters, even if everyone ended up playing swarm vs antiswarm.

Edit: For example, Palob, Kaa'to, Attani Mindlink, Operations Specialist, Outlaw Tech... and whatever comes in the next year. Many ways to give focus and not be dependent on manaroo or glitterstim.

Zuckuss: Defender rerolls defence dice, multiple per round - 1 point

Elusiveness- rerolls 1 attack die effectively once per round - 2 points

R7 Agro- rerolls attack dice costing a TL once per round - 2 points

M9G8 - Attacker rerolls one die if TL'D (no cost to trigger), multiple per round - 3 points.

R4B11 - spend a TL to reroll all defense dice - 3 points.

Zuckuss feels pretty inexpensive to me in comparison.

Zuckuss: Defender rerolls defence dice, multiple per round - 1 point

Elusiveness- rerolls 1 attack die effectively once per round - 2 points

R7 Agro- rerolls attack dice costing a TL once per round - 2 points

M9G8 - Attacker rerolls one die if TL'D (no cost to trigger), multiple per round - 3 points.

R4B11 - spend a TL to reroll all defense dice - 3 points.

Zuckuss feels pretty inexpensive to me in comparison.

You left off the downside of stress.

Yes, I think Zuckuss is cheap, but so was Crack Shot when it came out. The designers are working out how to cost things so that they will be taken at tournaments. Zuckuss at 1 point is very competitive.