After reading up on the history of the TIE Phantom from its first release in confusion, to its rise in power, throughout the complaining that it might destroy all new players interest in the game, to the designers nerf, and throughout its decline from real viability. In correlation to the entire game, we can all point to many beloved ships that have seen their viability on the mat decline, and many have been offered some buffs, in minor ways, and there are still cries for help. Other than the Punisher and the Karaxeraxers, the buffs have come.

Am I nuts? Perhaps. Was the Phantom issued just a few Waves too early? Perhaps the simple fix is the best fix. What if FFG just removed the TIE Phantom’s note in the FAQ? Wouldn’t this assist not only this expensive and rarely used ship, but give the designers a much-needed congratulations for the original, and quite amazing, design?

Yeah, I’m probably nuts.

Yes, you are nuts. The Tie Phantom should need an entire re-write before it is allowed back in the game. Knock it's attack value down to 3 and remove Advanced Cloaking Device from the game. Then I'll be fine with letting it back in. It's a terrible ship as it is now and you either can easily beat it or it can easily beat you. It's the worst example of rock/paper/scissors in the game. It's a horribly designed ship and should just be removed from the game. I @#$@# hate this ship.

3 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Yes, you are nuts. The Tie Phantom should need an entire re-write before it is allowed back in the game. Knock it's attack value down to 3 and remove Advanced Cloaking Device from the game. Then I'll be fine with letting it back in. It's a terrible ship as it is now and you either can easily beat it or it can easily beat you. It's the worst example of rock/paper/scissors in the game. It's a horribly designed ship and should just be removed from the game. I @#$@# hate this ship.

Sounds like someone had a bad experience and is equating it to every experience they will ever have with a ship. QQ.



Also, ClanofWolves, there might be enough ps9 ships now to have the meta respond properly to the phantom.

1 minute ago, Luke C said:

Sounds like someone had a bad experience and is equating it to every experience they will ever have with a ship. QQ.

More than just one bad experience. It's also horrible from a design perspective. If you look at the high PS pilots with ACD then your list either has the tools to beat it or it doesn't have the tools to beat it and it curb stomps you. Having an effective Tie Phantom at high PS with ACD pretty much requires your opponent to have a high PS ship that can fire before it and most likely have a turret. The tools to beat the Tie Phantom are utterly "meta warping" to use FFG's own terminology. It's bad game design and it's a bad ship to have in the game.

It's also horrible in Epic and in so many missions, too.

2 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

More than just one bad experience. It's also horrible from a design perspective. If you look at the high PS pilots with ACD then your list either has the tools to beat it or it doesn't have the tools to beat it and it curb stomps you. Having an effective Tie Phantom at high PS with ACD pretty much requires your opponent to have a high PS ship that can fire before it and most likely have a turret. The tools to beat the Tie Phantom are utterly "meta warping" to use FFG's own terminology. It's bad game design and it's a bad ship to have in the game.

It's also horrible in Epic and in so many missions, too.

That has not been my experience. It is literally just a double guess when you set your dial, whats so hard about that? You need to figure out what direction they are going to decloak AND the maneuver. yes there are a ton of options, but thats where good players shine through.

It was awful prior to its decloak mechanic change. It required you to design your list to beat it, or to fly it yourself, SEVERELY limiting the meta, which lead to turret-wing. It singlehandedly destroyed the viability of low PS generic swarms (and introduced the PS race) - they could not get enough arcs on the phantom to do damage to it, and you had 38 points of Phantom destroy 100 points of ships. It won't be any different today either. You'll live by the Phantom, or you'll live to fight the phantom, and if your list doesn't do either of those, it's crap.

Just now, Luke C said:

That has not been my experience. It is literally just a double guess when you set your dial, whats so hard about that? You need to figure out what direction they are going to decloak AND the maneuver. yes there are a ton of options, but thats where good players shine through.

Generics stand little chance of taking out a Tie Phantom, even if they guess where it's going to be. The chances of 4 Rookie X-wings vs the 2 named Phantom pilots is incredibly slim. This needs to be the bases of validity of all matches in a game called X-wing. I think it does hold up in most cases. It does not vs. the Tie Phantom.

2 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Generics stand little chance of taking out a Tie Phantom, even if they guess where it's going to be. The chances of 4 Rookie X-wings vs the 2 named Phantom pilots is incredibly slim. This needs to be the bases of validity of all matches in a game called X-wing. I think it does hold up in most cases. It does not vs. the Tie Phantom.

oh, ok now that i know where you are coming from, I straight up disagree with your premise. Good day sir.

Phantoms got a buff called lightweight frame. They're really pretty alright ships if you ignore the 'cloak and invincible or naked and dead' aspect they used to do. Try out the following:

Whisper - lightweight frame, rage, inspiring recruits (36)

Or

Sigma - fire control system, lightweight frame (29)

They're not bad, they just don't do the thing phantoms used to, they're a bit like weird x-wings.

7 minutes ago, Luke C said:

oh, ok now that i know where you are coming from, I straight up disagree with your premise. Good day sir.

You disagree with the premise that 4 X-wings need to be able to win a game vs. any list? Ah....you must be only thinking of the "real" game of tournament level X-wing. Yes, if you think that's the only way to play the game, then I can see why you would think the Tie Phantom is a fine and balanced ship. If it's not broke, don't fly it.

The only thing i hate about the Phantom's design is its designed with Adv Cloaking in mind. Its way, way too fragile w/o cloak, and only slightly more durable when cloaked. I really wish it was designed a bit beefier, cloak be more defensively powerful (no range3?), and Adv Cloaking NOT EXIST
I can avoid Adv Cloaking on the generics, but not on echo/whisper. Those 2 are too expensive and valuable to not give the autocloak.

The TIE Phantom should be popping and and out of Cloak constantly. That's its schtick. Also, without Adv Cloak, you'd have to be allowed to attack while Cloaked or it would have been DoA.

Phantom's upgrade bar is so versatile that it can receive fixes in many shapes:

'Systems' specifically suited for them (Like adv. target. computers for X1s), 'crews' that specially benefit phantoms, and finally, the 'Title slot' is still open for them.

Phantoms are not a priority now (like the rest of the de-canonized ships), but if they ever are in need, it would be one the easiest ships to fix.

40 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

You disagree with the premise that 4 X-wings need to be able to win a game vs. any list? Ah....you must be only thinking of the "real" game of tournament level X-wing. Yes, if you think that's the only way to play the game, then I can see why you would think the Tie Phantom is a fine and balanced ship. If it's not broke, don't fly it.

I'm not taking that bait... I said GOOD DAY!

25 minutes ago, Engine25 said:

The TIE Phantom should be popping and and out of Cloak constantly. That's its schtick. Also, without Adv Cloak, you'd have to be allowed to attack while Cloaked or it would have been DoA.

Which is indicative of poor design. If you're going to release 2 mods with the phantom and the SPA (while nice) doesn't get much play because ACD is so auto-include, then perhaps you need to rethink the release.

What I suggested from the very beginning is that ACD should never have been released with the phantom. If you release a ship with its buff, then your options going forward are very limited. Release the ship and see how it fares. If it needs help, release the ACD in another pack to buff it. If you load it with all the goodies up front as they did, and it turns out to be too powerful as it did, then you've got to do some clumsy and regrettable errata'ing to fix it (which they did).

I do like the phantom but don't think it needs buffing, it is good that there are plenty of counters to it as that encourages variety.

Echo and whisper suffer from, tlt, higher ps, anything that fires in activation phase, mines and a few other occasional things. It does require you to have variety in your squad to deal very well with those threats for when you encounter them.

as regards using generics, maybe a sigma with scopes to be a good blocker that still hits hard. You will still have 68-70 points left for 2 other good ships, probably a defender of choice and maybe quisy for those tlt matches.

5 minutes ago, Jehan Menasis said:

Phantom's upgrade bar is so versatile that it can receive fixes in many shapes:

'Systems' specifically suited for them (Like adv. target. computers for X1s), 'crews' that specially benefit phantoms, and finally, the 'Title slot' is still open for them.

Phantoms are not a priority now (like the rest of the de-canonized ships), but if they ever are in need, it would be one the easiest ships to fix.

Your assertion that Legends ships aren't a priority now is blatantly false when you consider that the C-ROC is coming out with fixes for the Scyk, a Legends-only ship, and the designers have stated outright (whilst commentating at Worlds) that fixes for the Kihraxz and the StarViper are being designed.

If a fix for the Phantom were needed, system would probably be where it would end up (or actually, possibly Crew, as that's the most sacrificable slot in the typical Phantom build) but it's really not needed right now.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Your assertion that Legends ships aren't a priority now is blatantly false when you consider that the C-ROC is coming out with fixes for the Scyk, a Legends-only ship, and the designers have stated outright (whilst commentating at Worlds) that fixes for the Kihraxz and the StarViper are being designed.

If a fix for the Phantom were needed, system would probably be where it would end up (or actually, possibly Crew, as that's the most sacrificable slot in the typical Phantom build) but it's really not needed right now.

When was the last release that didn't include canon content?

This isn't a problem, but it's definitely a signal that canon is the priority.

7 minutes ago, Engine25 said:

When was the last release that didn't include canon content?

Jumpmaster and Misthunter technically haven't been in any new canon stuff.

I think the focus for FFG has just been about new stuff to match the current tv show and movies. It's not so much stuck on only doing new stuff, but there is so much new stuff coming out that it's got it's hands full.

There's too much new stuff (for my wallet at least). We have so many ships, upgrades and options now that as soon as we think we've got a handle on it, out pops a new wave.

It's a good problem to have, I suppose. I'd rather see things settle down slightly and older ships that been left behind see some love from FFG. Integrated Astro was nice, but we need a little more, and not just for the X.
Sorry for the side-rant.

Most of us seem to come to similar conclusions: the Phantom probably needs a re-work in some way to balance it out. For now, its staying where it is.

Well to start I would think we won't see anything to directly help the Phantom for a while because LWF already added some new options, but..

If I rewrote cloak, I think the balance is simple,

No acd required, the rest of the stats on the Phantom could stay the same, but you would really want to keep SPA

Here is the change. If you want the cloak,you choose it as your action, if you wanna shoot, you can chose to shoot, but it instantly turns off the Cloak, shoving you two to any direction, then you shoot.

This flips the pilot skill power levels,as low pilot skill can tank up,then shoot after most their squad shoots. This balances all pilots, because whisper is still sweet, because you can give her another ept, and she will get a focus for defense if she hits, and an evade from SPA. So she can tank a little, but only 2 dice greens will make her vulnerable. But repositioning hee can also be used to back up and make save her that way. Similar for echo. But the pilot skill 3 is now the tanky option, driving pilot skill down instead of up. This sounds both balancing and fun

That said...it's not how it works lol, and we will never get to do it again, but on that note. I think phantoms are tons of fun and even if they are not all competitive, you can have some creative fun for the. And whisper is a blast and in no way auto win. You think whisper is still too strong, take her to a regional,as I did, you can have good success, but your gonna be stressed out for sure, because green dice fail and bad guesses happen to everyone, and if your seated away from higher ps, fenn, decimator, mux, and a couple others,it will be a uphill battle and quite mentally taxing

Quote

Am I nuts? Perhaps. Was the Phantom issued just a few Waves too early? Perhaps the simple fix is the best fix. What if FFG just removed the TIE Phantom’s note in the FAQ? Wouldn’t this assist not only this expensive and rarely used ship, but give the designers a much-needed congratulations for the original, and quite amazing, design?

Even with balance set to the side the original timing window was an inferior design to the current one. Their rework made it a better ship - it's now one of the game's only non-reactive repositioners rather than just a TIE interceptor on steroids.

It's a ship that cloaks. The cloaking mechanic, as it stands, makes you choose where your TIE phantom is at the start of activation before it moves. The TIE phantom is in one of three places and you choose one. If your opponent guesses where it is correctly they can react to it: the TIE phantom can be in one of three places but it is in one of them.

Before that a high PS TIE phantom got to see where all the enemy ships went before it decloaked and then choose where to decloak to. This TIE phantom was nowhere until it decloaked, then it was in the worse possible position for the opponent.

It wasn't a cloaking mechanic, it was a repositioning ability.

2 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

After reading up on the history of the TIE Phantom from its first release in confusion, to its rise in power, throughout the complaining that it might destroy all new players interest in the game, to the designers nerf, and throughout its decline from real viability. In correlation to the entire game, we can all point to many beloved ships that have seen their viability on the mat decline, and many have been offered some buffs, in minor ways, and there are still cries for help. Other than the Punisher and the Karaxeraxers, the buffs have come.

Am I nuts? Perhaps. Was the Phantom issued just a few Waves too early? Perhaps the simple fix is the best fix. What if FFG just removed the TIE Phantom’s note in the FAQ? Wouldn’t this assist not only this expensive and rarely used ship, but give the designers a much-needed congratulations for the original, and quite amazing, design?

Yeah, I’m probably nuts.

You forget that when the Phantom came out there were far fewer play testers than there are now. With limited numbers and limited time it's no wonder that the Original Phantom build was released. With more players and some of them truly evil geniuses, it's a given that an OP combo will show up. The 3 Jumpmaster list with torps and Deadeye is a prime example before it got nerfed.

IMHO the only thing FFG really messed up in design was the T-65. Trying to "fix" it without turning it into another ship altogether is going to be hard. Then there's Biggs.

Tie phantom is still very strong. Not x7 level strong, but whisper is still great. If phantom needs fixing, just take a look at e wing, x-wing, t-70, hwk, kihshdssxrax fighter, tie punisher. Each of those ships would pay to be on phantom level.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

Jumpmaster and Misthunter technically haven't been in any new canon stuff.

I think the focus for FFG has just been about new stuff to match the current tv show and movies. It's not so much stuck on only doing new stuff, but there is so much new stuff coming out that it's got it's hands full.

The ships have not. But Lucasfilm likely agreed that Dengar and Zuckuss needed to be in the game. They are the canon link here, which supports my previous statements.