What is the build for Paratanni, if I may ask?

31 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

But that's a circular argument. The more chance a list has of winning a tournament the more you have of that archetype being played.

If half the room decided to play a **** list it's chance of winning would go from 0.1% to 0.2%, because it's still a **** list.

It's not a circular argument but it is a circular effect. It's a feedback loop.

A list does well, people copy that list. Three people copy that list. The chance of one of those four winning is higher than if only one entered. This is taken as confirmation of the list's quality. It's copied more. It wins more.

Granted, you're not going get a five HWK list doing this. But when there's much less between the lists as is the case with the top archetypes it can make all the difference.

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What is the build for Paratanni, if I may ask?

I believe it's a Manaroo, a Fang Fighter and a Lancer mindlinked together. It's probably the least informative list name ever to grace the forums.

Just now, rym said:

What is the build for Paratanni, if I may ask?

ventress + mindlink + Latts

Fenn + title + AT + mindlink

Manaroo + Mindlink

Just now, Kdubb said:

ventress + mindlink + Latts

Fenn + title + AT + mindlink

Manaroo + Mindlink

I could swear that has empty EPT slots in it. Or is that not a complete list?

27 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

But that's a circular argument. The more chance a list has of winning a tournament the more you have of that archetype being played.

If half the room decided to play a **** list it's chance of winning would go from 0.1% to 0.2%, because it's still a **** list.

I hear this, but imagine you have a new, unproven list which has a 60/40 matchup against all meta lists - you still have only a ~17% chance of going 8-2 or better in 10 rounds like Yavin. Player numbers alone won't overwhelm a 90/10 matchup, but they can hide genuinely new lists like that crazy Heragator. I'm not sure list discovery is efficient in the technical sense...

1 minute ago, Blue Five said:

Granted, you're not going get a five HWK list doing this. But when there's much less between the lists as is the case with the top archetypes it can make all the difference.

Not really, because although there's a feedback loop there's also diminishing returns on all additional copies in terms of the the % chance of the list winning. As lists spread in popularity away from the best players who had originally innovated and won with them towards the rank & file you're not really adding very much to the odds of that list winning the tournament.

1 minute ago, Blue Five said:

I could swear that has empty EPT slots in it. Or is that not a complete list?

Nope, that's it.

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I hear this, but imagine you have a new, unproven list which has a 60/40 matchup against all meta lists - you still have only a ~17% chance of going 8-2 or better in 10 rounds like Yavin. Player numbers alone won't overwhelm a 90/10 matchup, but they can hide genuinely new lists like that crazy Heragator. I'm not sure list discovery is efficient in the technical sense...

EDIT:

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Nope, that's it.

Then it's missing at least two Adaptabilities.

1 minute ago, Stay On The Leader said:

A lot of what is 'wrong' in Emperor Palpatine on a Lambda is also 'wrong' about Manaroo, especially as she's got a better ship than the Lambda and her ability can easily contribute more dice modification than Palpatine's ability does in a turn.

Manaroo's ability very frequently provides no dice modification in a round. It's not uncommon for the ship to which Manaroo passes tokens to end up with one or two focus tokens left over at the end of the round.

Unlike Palpatine, Manaroo doesn't increase defense (or offense) beyond what having a focus token would.

Without Mindlink, her ability isn't giving the squad extra action efficency. She's just allows the same number of actions to get shuffled around to ships that may need it more.

Unlike some of the lists that people have rebelled against, Paratanni is just solid. There's not a whole lot to it, in terms of building a list, it just happens to tick the boxes of survivability, flexibility, and offensive capability. The ships are built light (relatively. Fenn is pretty standard), but it's just each ship doing what it was designed to do, in concert with decent synergy.

In gaming terms, it's a DPS/Tank/Support. It's not a new concept, it just happens to be rare in X-wing. Fundamentally, it's balanced, which also happens to be rare in X-wing.

5 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

EDIT:

Then it's missing at least two Adaptabilities.

Mindlink is an EPT, which they all have.

I think the dominance of paratanni is caused by the same thing that makes many meta lists dominant. When a list is proven and good people will naturally copy it for a competitive tournament. It's without a question a great list but it's not the be all end all and eventually things will shake it up, much like dengaroo or commonwealth defenders aren't the most dominant anymore.

As for complaints, triple jumps was one of the most uninteractive lists possible, you made a mistake on ranges and your ship died with little reaction available, and dengaroo is bizarre to the point that it feels like it must be violating the game. As mentioned above, parattani feels like just a value list, it's still following most of the basic rules so it's feels less like something's wrong with the game.

Just now, The Penguin UK said:

Mindlink is an EPT, which they all have.

*facedesk*

I'm an idiot.

4 minutes ago, nigeltastic said:

As for complaints, triple jumps was one of the most uninteractive lists possible, you made a mistake on ranges and your ship died with little reaction available, and dengaroo is bizarre to the point that it feels like it must be violating the game. As mentioned above, parattani feels like just a value list, it's still following most of the basic rules so it's feels less like something's wrong with the game.

In fairness, there's quite a bit wrong with the game as it stands, and most of it comes from the last 12 months of expansions.

12 minutes ago, Xerandar said:

That sounds too rational for the internet.

Whining tends to be a delayed response: the current rage of the moment is (still) X7 despite it winning precisely 0 World Champs.

Can I make a request to retire the argument that a list needs to win worlds to be able to be considered problematic? U-Boats didn't win worlds, either, neither did Phantoms. XXBB was hardly unhealthy for the game, while Fat Han surely was. Both Defenders and Parattanni represent a clear creep of power (as in mathematicaly) over any other ship, which already has to some extend and over time will develop into a problematic situation. It makes new releases either have no impact or requires them to jack up the power curve even more.

1 minute ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Can I make a request to retire the argument that a list needs to win worlds to be able to be considered problematic? U-Boats didn't win worlds, either, neither did Phantoms. XXBB was hardly unhealthy for the game, while Fat Han surely was. Both Defenders and Parattanni represent a clear creep of power (as in mathematicaly) over any other ship, which already has to some extend and over time will develop into a problematic situation. It makes new releases either have no impact or requires them to jack up the power curve even more.

Thank you. Considering there is pretty much only 1 world championship per every 1-2 waves, there is precisely 0% pulling power in a statement that says "Well it's won zero world championships" considering only FIVE LISTS THROUGH VARYING METAS HAVE EVER WON WORLDS.

There is nothing pushed out of the meta by Parattani like there had been with U-boats, quad TLT, Dengaroo, etc. I feel like I have a chance at winning a game against Parattani with any well-built squad. The game is in my hands, and if I lose, it's because I didn't do enough to win. Because of this, I don't feel there is a need to address Parattani specifically.

Abilities that are not range bound are an issue, and I hope are addressed. All rangeless abilities should be bound by R3 (including mindlink and Manaroo), but I don't think this change would have any real impact on Parattani. As others have stated, they're typically flown together anyways because you can't afford to lose any fire power (indicator that the list isn't broken).

A fully kitted Dengar with his infinite Zuckuss, Infinite Focus, Infinite Lone Wolf Rerolls, and ability to shed target locks etc. is absolutely ZERO fun to fly against. You could line up Dengar with 4BZ and it is a bad idea to shoot! He will do more damage on his return shot than you are likely to do with all five attacks.

Parattani is simply a very efficient list. As others have said, it rarely feels "unfair."

Best analogy I can get so far: Certain baseball clubs have an undeniable advantage as revenue is not shared completely within the league. The Chicago Cubs will always start with an inherent advantage over the Pittsburgh Pirates because the TV market is bigger. The Cubs (or Yankees, whatever) are Parattani. They will win more often so long as their decision making is comparable to opponenents.

Dengaroo felt like a team that was using steroids and corked bats and required 4 outs per inning rather than three.

I feel like the anger is there but people are tired of making the same argument that the last few waves have seen a few list archetypes that are just that far above the competition. I actually found lists I could counter palp defenders, dengaroo, etc with. I haven't found a magic bullet for paratanni yet.

18 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Manaroo's ability very frequently provides no dice modification in a round. It's not uncommon for the ship to which Manaroo passes tokens to end up with one or two focus tokens left over at the end of the round.

Unlike Palpatine, Manaroo doesn't increase defense (or offense) beyond what having a focus token would.

Without Mindlink, her ability isn't giving the squad extra action efficency. She's just allows the same number of actions to get shuffled around to ships that may need it more.

Manaroo provides additional indirect dice modification in the form of allowing Fenn to take a target lock action instead of a focus, even when he knows he'll be shot at.

It increases offense/defense by allowing him to spend that focus shooting and still have one left over for defense. Even when they're not spent at all they serve a purpose by making people look at that stack of tokens and decide to take a less than ideal range 3 shot elsewhere rather than likely miss a tokened up AGI 3 AT ace.

Not all actions are equal. A focus token on a ship with a TL and a range 1 shot is more valuable than a focus on a ship with no shot. Even without mindlink to give the focus back to Manaroo (who often isn't even in range to shoot anyone so who cares) being able to move that focus where it will combine with other modifications and positions to do the most good is huge. Mindlink does indeed combo well with her but that combo is as much or more about being able to give multiple focuses where and when needed than pure action efficiency.

2 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

A fully kitted Dengar with his infinite Zuckuss, Infinite Focus, Infinite Lone Wolf Rerolls, and ability to shed target locks etc. is absolutely ZERO fun to fly against. You could line up Dengar with 4BZ and it is a bad idea to shoot! He will do more damage on his return shot than you are likely to do with all five attacks.

Parattani is simply a very efficient list. As others have said, it rarely feels "unfair."

Best analogy I can get so far: Certain baseball clubs have an undeniable advantage as revenue is not shared completely within the league. The Chicago Cubs will always start with an inherent advantage over the Pittsburgh Pirates because the TV market is bigger. The Cubs (or Yankees, whatever) are Parattani. They will win more often so long as their decision making is comparable to opponenents.

Dengaroo felt like a team that was using steroids and corked bats and required 4 outs per inning rather than three.

Yeah, when people describe the ideal list to be good in X-wing, they describe paratanni, a balanced set of pilot skills, three different ships that do things differently, and six total upgrade cards. The only off thing is the lack of iconic SW ships featured, a casualty of wave 1-3's poor design decisions.

I think we had this same discussion last year with Triple Jumps and Palp Aces. Everyone was angry at Jumpmaster but Palp Aces were actually doing the winning.

The argument that made sense then, and I think applies to Paratanni too, is that while Jumpmasters made it abundantly clear that your game was ruined (with their massive alpha strike) the Palp Aces at least gave you the illusion that you were in a real game while they danced around you. I think a lot of the time when you're up against Paratanni it provides a very good illusion that a game is happening, when in fact the dice are being subtly stacked so consistently against you that it's all but a foregone conclusion.

Action economy is the new hotness.

10 minutes ago, Cr0aker said:

I feel like the anger is there but people are tired of making the same argument that the last few waves have seen a few list archetypes that are just that far above the competition. I actually found lists I could counter palp defenders, dengaroo, etc with. I haven't found a magic bullet for paratanni yet.

I did. It's called TIE Bombers. Worked a treat the other day. Who'd have thought?

4 minutes ago, Panzeh said:

Yeah, when people describe the ideal list to be good in X-wing, they describe paratanni, a balanced set of pilot skills, three different ships that do things differently, and six total upgrade cards. The only off thing is the lack of iconic SW ships featured, a casualty of wave 1-3's poor design decisions.

I'd add that two of the ships do have prominent roles in new canon material. While iconic OT ships need to be represented (and I agree their underrepresentation is a problem), I would argue that representation of new material is equally important for the health of the game.

Also, both Parattani and Dengaroo are wonderfully thematic and I love it. An Aruzan using mindlink to support some scummy bounty hunters/mercenaries from the Clone Wars era? Dengar and Manaroo running some missions to fund their honeymoon? Say what you will about their problems, but theme and fluff is something Scum as a faction does supremely well.