There are better and worse ships, we all know that. Many games which have the same "problem" have their "tier lists" that are meant to help with choices and show place of the characters, ships, factions or whatever in the metagame. There is nothing like that in x-wing and i would like to hear some opinions about where the ships would suit. The tiers are:
S - incredibly powerful ships, every player have to consider them when building the list

A - great ships capable of beating every or most lists handled by good player

B - good ships that sometimes struggle in current metagame

C - mediocre ships that can be good when handled by good player that can mitigate their disadvantages

D - a.ka trash tier

How do you see this? What is your "tier list"? When puting ship in the tier we consider using their best builds possible.

Your "Tier" list, whatever you may be thinking, is already blown to shreds.....

Just had a guy win the Kansas City regionals with a Bossk, Finn, and Scyk........

Yes, you heard right, a scyk.

You can't tier individual ships either, or at least not practically. So much of the ship's value is in what you're combining it with in your list.

You could probably put together a tier list of how easy each ship is to work into a competitive list, but its probably more practical just to look at something like ListJuggler at how often each ship is showing up in high-performing lists.

Tiering the ships themselves might just be less complicated than all that. Might only need 3 tiers.

good,mediocre and bad.

often used,sometimes used, very rarely used.

defender.......interceptor.....punisher.

something along those lines. and of course there are lots of exceptions and creative uses of rarely used ships.

Wing-span tier --> ARC, U-wing and K-wing

honorary wing-span tier --> Biggs

Non-wingspan peasants tier --> everyone else

You know, I tried it.

I was doing a tier list of pilots, going by personal judgement over 25~ years of wargaming, aided by the usage stats for the pilots that actually made the top cut, while describing the configurations that are most used with each pilot. I was in plans to make it so that the website would shift pilots up and down based on that same final cut usage, so a pilot that was in Rank S would slide downward automatically if it stopped placing (much like Soontir Fel has been doing for some time).

And while quite a few people liked it, there were more than a few folks like emmjay above who were like, "How DARE you say Mauler Mithel is Rank C! He's almost as good as Zeta Leader! And who'd ever believe that Wampa is a good ship? And what do you mean that Wedge is Rank C, and the only T-65 X-Wing that's Rank S is Biggs? What, you're basing your list off of something as dumb as 'what places in tournaments most reliably'? Jackass, we don't want to see your hard work!"

So I dropped it.

Plus, the tournament scene died up here and I moved on to other games. Malifaux, you got some pretty minis, and a much less hate-filled player base.

I'll bite. Come at me, dissenters!

S tier

Rebel: none

Imperial: TIE Defender

Scum: Jumpmaster 5000

A tier

Rebel: K-wing, E-wing, VCX-100, YT-2400

Imperial: Lambda Shuttle, TIE Interceptor, VT-49 Decimator, TIE Adv. Prototype

Scum: Protectorate Starfighter, Lancer-class Pursuit Craft, Y-wing, YV-666

B tier

Rebel: YT-1300, ARC-170, T-70, A-wing, Y-wing, X-wing

Imperial: TIE Phantom, TIE/FO, TIE Advanced, TIE Fighter

Scum: Aggressor, HWK-290, G-1A Starfighter

C tier

Rebel: B-wing, HWK-290, Z95 Headhunter, Attack Shuttle

Imperial: TIE Bomber, TIE/SF

Scum: Firespray-31, Kihraxz Fighter, Z95 Headhunter

D tier

Rebel: none

Imperial: TIE Punisher, Firespray-31

Scum: Starviper, M3A Interceptor.

This is based off of the best meta builds you can make with each ship, e.g. the E-wing is Corran Horn, the shuttle is a Palpshuttle, etc.

Your "Tier" list, whatever you may be thinking, is already blown to shreds.....

Just had a guy win the Kansas City regionals with a Bossk, Finn, and Scyk........

Yes, you heard right, a scyk.

I'm not surprised.

All it takes is more people flying ships to see more people winning competitions with them.

And more people tend to give ships a try when they've just received a buff.

....hate-filled player base.

Maybe it's less a hate filled player base, and more that trying to tier Xwing ships is just a fools errand. To say that it's super subjective is an understatement. Mix that with the fact that a lot of ships change tier based on their loadout/what they pair up against/what else is in their list, and you get the idea.

If you insist in doing tier lists, use full squads (not individual ships).

There you can ask for all the stuff that make tier lists a thing: easyness to master, effort to fly vs reward, matchup dependente. That kind of stuff.

Your "Tier" list, whatever you may be thinking, is already blown to shreds.....

Just had a guy win the Kansas City regionals with a Bossk, Finn, and Scyk........

Yes, you heard right, a scyk.

I'm not surprised.

All it takes is more people flying ships to see more people winning competitions with them.

And more people tend to give ships a try when they've just received a buff.

I flew the scyk in the KC regional because its my favorite ship in the game. Also for the 16-18 points I had for a blocker I didnt want to load up a z, and the scyk has native barrel roll and evade. Also its adorable.

Your "Tier" list, whatever you may be thinking, is already blown to shreds.....

Just had a guy win the Kansas City regionals with a Bossk, Finn, and Scyk........

Yes, you heard right, a scyk.

BBBXZ took 3rd in the Maryland(?) Reigonals, so your argument stands.

You know, I tried it.

I was doing a tier list of pilots, going by personal judgement over 25~ years of wargaming, aided by the usage stats for the pilots that actually made the top cut, while describing the configurations that are most used with each pilot. I was in plans to make it so that the website would shift pilots up and down based on that same final cut usage, so a pilot that was in Rank S would slide downward automatically if it stopped placing (much like Soontir Fel has been doing for some time).

And while quite a few people liked it, there were more than a few folks like emmjay above who were like, "How DARE you say Mauler Mithel is Rank C! He's almost as good as Zeta Leader! And who'd ever believe that Wampa is a good ship? And what do you mean that Wedge is Rank C, and the only T-65 X-Wing that's Rank S is Biggs? What, you're basing your list off of something as dumb as 'what places in tournaments most reliably'? Jackass, we don't want to see your hard work!"

So I dropped it.

Plus, the tournament scene died up here and I moved on to other games. Malifaux, you got some pretty minis, and a much less hate-filled player base.

Hate filled player base? Don't get me wrong, there's some bad eggs in the X-wing community (Cough PGS Cough), but have you ever been to a large MTG event?

It just was amazing the amount of actual, no jokes about it hate I received via PM for trying to do a sensible tier list, and I think it stemmed from ignorance: Tier lists are divided by ease of use AND general power, not just power. So Backstabber (for example) rated higher than Mauler Mithel because one's special ability is easier to trigger than the other's, and usage stats bore that out at the time: Mauler never even placed in the previous three months, but Backstabber was at like 2-3% of TIE Fighters. Ditto Luke Skywalker versus Biggs: Biggs is top-tier because he has a strong ability that blends well into a lot of squads, whereas Luke... never even placed. When I looked back over a year of usage, he placed in something like 0.1% of squads put into ListJuggler.

Any game can be tiered (X-Wing isn't some special snowflake!), and it often helps out beginning players to know where various options stack up against each other for ease of use and power. Compared to the communities of some thirty or so games over the last two decades where I've helped with or just outright made tier listings,

X-Wing Players were the most hostile of any community I've seen.

Just out and out hostile , from both veterans and newbs. When it got to the point that I had a form-letter cut and paste response to some newbie who'd jump into the threads whinging about how his favorite ship isn't Rank S, and it was causing me more stress every day just to open up this website and see if anyone had any valid criticism versus just flinging more poo like so many monkeys, I decided "Hell with it," and moved on.

Most gaming communities like knowledge and information. X-Wing is hateful to it; witness the flak that MajorJuggler draws for applying math to a game that is at least 3/4th math. So I ended what could have been a useful contribution to the community and now I like to troll just a bit. It's less stressful.

weird

I live in NYC, a self-proclaimed (and proud of it) city of assholes

the group here is the most chill I've ever been a part of, despite also being one of the most competitive, relative to every table-top group I've been with

Eh, Tier lists in general tend to take a lot of flak. D&D 3.5's tier list still generates weekly arguments on the forums dedicated to the game, Smogon* takes a lot of flak in the Pokémon community... the list goes on. Humans have a tendency to feel insulted when something they like is insulted, and some people consider their favorite ship/class/character/etc... being in a low tier to be an insult to that thing, even though most tier lists are largely descriptive. I don't blame you for not wanting to deal with the hate mail, of course. But to your experience isn't an anomaly when it comes to creating tier lists.

*To be fair, Smogon's tiering system does determine what formats a Pokémon can be used in on their site, so it does have some effect on how people play, unlike most tier lists.

And Smogon's is double-weird because it's more about making sure that the pokemon you like don't get beaten down by unfair matches, so if you happen to think Krookodile is awesome he doesn't get super-crushed by Kyogre. You can always play up from lower tiers, but not down.

One of the reasons I like D&D5e is because the tier listing is so muddy. There's S-tier aside from Moon Druid, almost everything is A-tier, and only a couple of things are B-tier, with only a small gap from that to a tiny C-tier. Versus 3.5, where it's "Full spellcasters to the top, group needs at least one skillmonkey, everyone else to the bottom." Tiering in RPGs is odd, though, because at heart it's not competitive: except in the very worst RPG sessions the GM is there to tell a story with the help of the players.

Wing-span tier --> ARC, U-wing and K-wing

honorary wing-span tier --> Biggs

Non-wingspan peasants tier --> everyone else

Wing-span tier --> ARC, U-wing and K-wing

honorary wing-span tier --> Biggs

Non-wingspan peasants tier --> everyone else

Forgetting the Ren Bat

not horizontal enough

First of all: I really think that the X-Wing community is rather peaceful and friendly.

I have been to a lot of online-boards so far, and it's much better here than in most other places.

About the tier list:

I really appreciate the idea, but I don't think this could work.

Of course there are some ships, which might be regarded a "top tier" list... like Defenders for example. But those can be beaten easily with Phantoms. Phantoms are an auto-loss to Fat Han.....

and honestly, there are a lot of underrated ships out there, which would really beat the "top tier" ships.

The whole squad must be good... so maybe one ship really sucks unless you fly it together with a very special wingman.

I hope you understand what I mean, why this won't be the most helpful list, even though I appreciate it, when somebody tries to find out, which ships are really good in comparison to MOST others.

Wing-span tier --> ARC, U-wing and K-wing

honorary wing-span tier --> Biggs

Non-wingspan peasants tier --> everyone else

Forgetting the Ren Bat

not horizontal enough

Lambda, Ghost, Shadow Caster, YV.

Wing-span tier --> ARC, U-wing and K-wing

honorary wing-span tier --> Biggs

Non-wingspan peasants tier --> everyone else

Forgetting the Ren Bat

not horizontal enough

Lambda, Ghost, Shadow Caster, YV.

not hortizontal

no wings

those are turbines

wings cannot compare to its giant, tumorous head

You know, I tried it.

I was doing a tier list of pilots, going by personal judgement over 25~ years of wargaming, aided by the usage stats for the pilots that actually made the top cut, while describing the configurations that are most used with each pilot. I was in plans to make it so that the website would shift pilots up and down based on that same final cut usage, so a pilot that was in Rank S would slide downward automatically if it stopped placing (much like Soontir Fel has been doing for some time).

And while quite a few people liked it, there were more than a few folks like emmjay above who were like, "How DARE you say Mauler Mithel is Rank C! He's almost as good as Zeta Leader! And who'd ever believe that Wampa is a good ship? And what do you mean that Wedge is Rank C, and the only T-65 X-Wing that's Rank S is Biggs? What, you're basing your list off of something as dumb as 'what places in tournaments most reliably'? Jackass, we don't want to see your hard work!"

So I dropped it.

That sounds really interesting.

What did you code your tier list with? Is the source available somewhere? I'd be interested in having a look. I probably won't have time for continuing anything, but who knows...

S: defenders, lambda, Interceptor, Jumpmaster.

A: decimator, tie adv prototype, tie phantom, tie fo, k wing, y wing, t70, ghost, yt 2400, yt 1300, fang fighter, yv 666, shadow caster.

B: tie fighter, tie adv, z95, A-wibg, x wing (biggs) e wing (corran), ig88's.

C: tie bomber, tie sf, hwk 290, b-wing, mist hunter, arc 170,

D: tie punisher, e wing, x wing, kirahxz, attack shuttle, Scyk, firespray.

Garbage tier: star vipers. Seriously star vipers are bad, guri bad, your guri list is bad. I don't care about the matches and tournaments your guri list won you'll never win anything major. Throw it away where it belongs once you take the autothrusters. Ffg needs to rename it the autothruster expansion.

Your "Tier" list, whatever you may be thinking, is already blown to shreds.....

Just had a guy win the Kansas City regionals with a Bossk, Finn, and Scyk........

Yes, you heard right, a scyk.

but scyks are good now

Wing-span tier --> ARC, U-wing and K-wing

honorary wing-span tier --> Biggs

Non-wingspan peasants tier --> everyone else

Forgetting the Ren Bat

not horizontal enough

Lambda, Ghost, Shadow Caster, YV.

not hortizontal

no wings

those are turbines

wings cannot compare to its giant, tumorous head

Yea it is diagonal but its horizontal wingspan is still longer than everything but the ARC and Kwing.