How's about this for Manaroo?

At the start of the Combat phase, if you are not stressed, you may assign all focus, evade, and target lock tokens assigned to you to another unstressed, friendly ship.

We all happy now?

6 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

We all happy now?

No, some people will never be happy.

I don't understand all this knee-jerk reaction calling for nerfs. Unlimited range is fine. Manaroo's ability is fantastic. There has to be another squad that can go toe-to-toe with Parattani, and probably more than one. I agree with others that have said it feels like a fair fight, even if the odds are stacked a little in Parattani's favor. This is an instance where I strongly believe the "cure" (nerf) will be worse than the "disease" (Attanni Mindlink, Manaroo, or rangeless abilities in general). Note that I do not feel Parattani is a disease; just using the analogy.

2 minutes ago, NakedDex said:

I probably misused balanced in favour of "not broken" there. Asajj is incredibly flexible in that list, and certainly very action efficient, but her evade only works against the person she placed it on, and her mobile arc is how all PWTs should have been done from the start. Fenn is incredibly strong, but he's also quite fragile, and suffers terribly to almost any crit in the deck. Manny doesn't punch out an incredible amount of damage, so it's possible to leave her last, or break off a single ship to hunt her down (if your list allows).

There's no one element of it - in a vacuum - that can't be beaten by any number of ships or lists. The strength is in the synergy, which isn't something we get to say in this game very often anymore without "overpowered" or "broken" being said in the same breath.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not fond of the lack of range restriction on any card. I don't think it would hurt this list too much to limit both Attani and Manny (as well as Palp etc) to R3, but it would allow more ways to combat it.

I mostly agree with you, though my problem with the "synergy" it's a very easy one to accomplish without significant drawback (most people agree, for example, that Mindlink actually gets around stress pretty easily). I think that synergies should require more work to pull off than simply putting a group of cards in a list or on a ship or list (I think cards like Swarm Leader and Bohdi Rook pilot do a much nicer job of this as recent examples -- btw, remember when Dutch Garven used to be a thing? That's laughable now). It's a reason I think that unlimited range abilities are bad for a game that should really be about maneuvering since they so can so easily subvert that mechanic.

4 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

I don't understand all this knee-jerk reaction calling for nerfs. Unlimited range is fine. Manaroo's ability is fantastic. There has to be another squad that can go toe-to-toe with Parattani, and probably more than one. I agree with others that have said it feels like a fair fight, even if the odds are stacked a little in Parattani's favor. This is an instance where I strongly believe the "cure" (nerf) will be worse than the "disease" (Attanni Mindlink, Manaroo, or rangeless abilities in general). Note that I do not feel Parattani is a disease; just using the analogy.

I don't think concerns over Dengaroo and Parattani qualify as knee-jerk. The data is there. Manaroo is an integral part of both lists and I think my idea is a pretty reasonable response that would leave her useful but not dominant.

If there is a squad that can go "toe-to-toe" with Parattani, I'm sure we will see it very soon. But that only helps if this hypothetical squad has some exploitable weakness to other existing lists.

I think the issue of range caps on support ships is - who takes support ships with range limits? There certainly have been supportive builds in the past, good friendly ships, but if those ships don't also do something for themselves, do people take them? It didn't necessarily seem like they did. It may be that cards without range limits appeared around the same time because FFG tested or realized the emerging play that range restricted support didn't get flown much. Even now, you have cards like Major Stridan who is like "yeah, screw all your old range restrictions, move it to 3!". We'll have to see if that's enough for play, which may be the kind of thing FFG is getting at?

Also, if you're philosophically opposed to unlimited range support, then this would also call for Sabine to be nerfed, which nobody is complaining about.

1 minute ago, UnitOmega said:

I think the issue of range caps on support ships is - who takes support ships with range limits? There certainly have been supportive builds in the past, good friendly ships, but if those ships don't also do something for themselves, do people take them? It didn't necessarily seem like they did. It may be that cards without range limits appeared around the same time because FFG tested or realized the emerging play that range restricted support didn't get flown much. Even now, you have cards like Major Stridan who is like "yeah, screw all your old range restrictions, move it to 3!". We'll have to see if that's enough for play, which may be the kind of thing FFG is getting at?

Also, if you're philosophically opposed to unlimited range support, then this would also call for Sabine to be nerfed, which nobody is complaining about.

I stopped taking Sabine K-Wings to game night because they were way too frustrating for my opponents. Sabine being able to just SLAM away infinitely while still contributing plays a huge part in that and when we talk about nerf bats, although it pains me to say, Sabine needs a good look at, too.

So, by support ships without range limit, you mean Manaroo?

I don't see a problem, why do we have to complain and nerf everything, it just makes it harder to play competitively when the community immediately calls out for more FAQ. the FAQ is nearly 20pages long.

I have no problem with pilots or upgrades that can shift a range band, but unlimited range doesn't really make sense. In fairness, there's only one "support" ship with any range style ability, and that's Manaroo. Palp, Sabine, and Mindlink are all upgrades to ships that can perfectly serve combat roles.

Range 3 is pretty broad, so it's not exactly a meta defining change to introduce it retroactively, but it is one that solves a lot of frustrations, while being terribly simple to enact.

Regardless, Paratanni is a strong list, but it's not unbeatable. Right now it's quite new, and minds higher than mine are, I'm sure, working on a novel way to crack it reliably. My money's on an ordnance based solution, but I say that to most things.

It's funny. I usually hate the initial power lists and love the ones that come out that shred them to pieces. Palp Aces was obnoxious, so U-boats gibbing them was fine in my book.

Same here. Defenders and Dengaroo getting you down? Here's the bad boy that knocks them down a peg.

Leave it be. Don't nerf Manaroo because it's not all that broken.

Paratanni can be beaten, and I am sure some new combo will be discovered that does it reliably. Then folks will complain about that list instead.

Just play the game for fun? Stress the heck out of one of the ships or just focus them down. Avoid the Arc of Rau, remember that Asajj has to use her action to move her Mobile Arc so she relies on Manaroo for tokens. Block Manaroo to deny her her actions and she cannot give them away? Force her to barrel roll to survive so she cannot use actions.

Manaroo isn't the be all and end all she is a good basis for what a support ship should be. Assign your blocker to just follow Manaroo around Harass her.

Deadeye being made "Small-only" didn't fix the JM5K. That's the problem. Manaroo isn't the common factor in U-Boats/Dengaroo/Parattani ... the JM5K is. It's simply too cheap. If Parattani is nerfed in FFG's usual "punt on 3rd down" way, Dengaroo will come back. If Dengaroo is nerfed the same way, another JM5K list will rise to dominance. The JM5K has too many awesome upgrade slots, a fantastic dial, a really good stat-line, and it is simply too cheap.

The correct fix for the JM5K was: (1) All JM5Ks' cost up by 2. (2) Jankymech slot removed from base ship, moved to Punishing One title. (3) Punishing One title down to 10 points.

The effect of this on U-Boats should be pretty obvious. The effect on Dengaroo isn't as strong, but would be enough (between losing crazy init-bids and losing Manaroo's Jankymech). What about Parattani?

So Parattani is:

Rau (28) + Mindlink (1) + AutoT (2) + CDP (1)

Asajj (37) + Mindlink (1) + Latts (2)

Manaroo (27) + Mindlink (1)

What would you give up for the extra 2-point cost? Latts? Autothrusters?

It would be enough.

FFG needs to stop punting on 3rd down and actually fix things that turn out to be too good. My name is in the credits for the JM5K, and I flatly screwed up. The ship is simply too good for the cost.

7 minutes ago, Skargoth said:

It's funny. I usually hate the initial power lists and love the ones that come out that shred them to pieces. Palp Aces was obnoxious, so U-boats gibbing them was fine in my book.

Same here. Defenders and Dengaroo getting you down? Here's the bad boy that knocks them down a peg.

Just as a quick derail: Uboats didn't gib palp aces, In fact, Uboats essentially killed off all rebels (with MAYBE a few notable exceptions like chewie and chopper), and Palp aces were consistantly killing uboats, as they could tank the torps and then a 2 die ship against a 3 evade die ship with autothrusters and PTL made them unkillable. The auto loss against uboats made rebel lists dissapear (mostly) which increased the power of palp aces (as there was no one to compete in the PS race).

The problem with directly addressing the Jumpmaster's cost is I'm pretty sure that will basically start a riot in the community. It'll cause an uproar which will never die down, because people will always be complaining for FFG to adjust price points of ships which may be over/undercosted directly which is not something they've really done and I don't know if they want that headache. Most users on the forum honestly probably don't want that either - if you think balance discussions are dull now just imagine when everyone has a legit argument for "just add/take away a point" and then everybody fights about how many points to add/remove.

12 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

I think the issue of range caps on support ships is - who takes support ships with range limits? There certainly have been supportive builds in the past, good friendly ships, but if those ships don't also do something for themselves, do people take them? It didn't necessarily seem like they did. It may be that cards without range limits appeared around the same time because FFG tested or realized the emerging play that range restricted support didn't get flown much. Even now, you have cards like Major Stridan who is like "yeah, screw all your old range restrictions, move it to 3!". We'll have to see if that's enough for play, which may be the kind of thing FFG is getting at?

Also, if you're philosophically opposed to unlimited range support, then this would also call for Sabine to be nerfed, which nobody is complaining about.

Range 1 support is too restrictive. Due to the size of bases movement templates it effectively means fly in tight formation during the joust and then for the most part never get used again. Range 1-2 is OK, it's a decent size and if the power is good enough then it might see use but it's still hard to get mileage out of it reliably. Range 3 is pretty easy to keep up usage of but it does require you to have the ship in or around combat range and thus vulnerable to potentially being shot. Unlimited range means you can just punt off to the other side of the map if you take a couple hits while still providing your full support ability.

What we've seen in the past is a power curve of support abilities that is inversely correlated with range. Range 1 stuff was good, range 3 stuff was crap. But range 1 was too restrictive so good or not it didn't get used. Range 3 powers weren't worth bothering with since they didn't do enough to matter. The result was that support abilities just weren't used since the overall level of that curve was too low. So yeah they realized that something needed to be done but they went straight from range 1 to unlimited or crap to amazing depending on which site of the equation you're talking about, it was a massive overreach and we're seeing the results now. Stridan is an attempt to bring all those largely useless range 1 cards into actual play while still not going overboard with them.

Anytime anyone ever complains about triple K-Wings they are complaining about Sabine, whether they know it or not as she's the only thing making that list competitive, and lots of people complain about those

34 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Deadeye being made "Small-only" didn't fix the JM5K. That's the problem. Manaroo isn't the common factor in U-Boats/Dengaroo/Parattani ... the JM5K is. It's simply too cheap. If Parattani is nerfed in FFG's usual "punt on 3rd down" way, Dengaroo will come back. If Dengaroo is nerfed the same way, another JM5K list will rise to dominance. The JM5K has too many awesome upgrade slots, a fantastic dial, a really good stat-line, and it is simply too cheap.

The correct fix for the JM5K was: (1) All JM5Ks' cost up by 2. (2) Jankymech slot removed from base ship, moved to Punishing One title. (3) Punishing One title down to 10 points.

The effect of this on U-Boats should be pretty obvious. The effect on Dengaroo isn't as strong, but would be enough (between losing crazy init-bids and losing Manaroo's Jankymech). What about Parattani?

So Parattani is:

Rau (28) + Mindlink (1) + AutoT (2) + CDP (1)

Asajj (37) + Mindlink (1) + Latts (2)

Manaroo (27) + Mindlink (1)

What would you give up for the extra 2-point cost? Latts? Autothrusters?

It would be enough.

FFG needs to stop punting on 3rd down and actually fix things that turn out to be too good. My name is in the credits for the JM5K, and I flatly screwed up. The ship is simply too good for the cost.

Hahaha. Can you iterate on how you let this one pass you to get to all of us? *good humor intended. I want to hear a good story. @Jeff Wilder

As for paratanni. Honestly, its a kind of beautiful list. Lots of utility, firepower.

I agree the Jump is undercosted. Manaroo's ability is very strong, probably stronger than FFG expected. Just like Palpatine.

Fenn Rau also is really darn amazing for his cost. Especially after he gets extra action Econ.

---

On that note, I barely squeezed a win after to playing for months with a janky list vs manaroo Fenn and a khrizaxcasdf.

Fenn and Manaroo were really hard to fight. I bet asajj makes this much harder.

4 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Hahaha. Can you iterate on how you let this one pass you to get to all of us? *good humor intended. I want to hear a good story.

Obviously I wasn't (anywhere near) the only person involved with the JM5K, but I'm not going to speak for other people, not implicitly, and certainly not explicitly. All I'm willing to say is that I screwed up. I didn't catch what, in retrospect, I should have caught. I'm not saying that me catching it would have made a difference -- or that it wouldn't have. All I'm saying is that I screwed up by not catching it.

40 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

My name is in the credits for the JM5K, and I flatly screwed up. The ship is simply too good for the cost.

Well if it's any consolation, even if you had mentioned something, there's no guarantee it would have turned out differently. They did sell a ton of JM5Ks last year.

I kinda think the contracted scout should stay the same. Nerfing its price and upgrade slots would put it in the WSF zone of never seriously played.

Would be more okay with a manaroo price hike.

1 minute ago, Panzeh said:

I kinda think the contracted scout should stay the same. Nerfing its price and upgrade slots would put it in the WSF zone of never seriously played.

Would be more okay with a manaroo price hike.

I highly doubt that. Even at +2pts the scout is great value.

1 minute ago, Celez said:

I highly doubt that. Even at +2pts the scout is great value.

Agreed. Ironically, it would still be a fantastic ordnance platform. (Remember, I'm talking about reversing the stupid Deadeye "fix.") It just wouldn't be a broken ordnance platform.

7 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Obviously I wasn't (anywhere near) the only person involved with the JM5K, but I'm not going to speak for other people, not implicitly, and certainly not explicitly. All I'm willing to say is that I screwed up. I didn't catch what, in retrospect, I should have caught. I'm not saying that me catching it would have made a difference -- or that it wouldn't have. All I'm saying is that I screwed up by not catching it.

What's your personal take on the story then?

I'm not trying to skewer you on this post or anything but I'd love to hear the thoughts about its play test. As, we've mostly ascribed the chassis as undercosted.