4 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

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.

If you took off the salvaged astromech it would be a garbage ordnance platform.

I have never played a match against Parattani , but honestly... I dislike it already.

This feels like "oh another overpowered Scum netlist" ....... after Uboats and Dengaroo.

Why is this happening again? Even if it is not as broken as the other ones before, it still seems to be too strong and too mighty in comparison to any "normal" list out there.

And why is it always a Scum list anyway? Isn't Star Wars a story about Rebels (versus Imperium) for the most part?

1 minute ago, Blail Blerg said:

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.

I'm not permitted to talk any specifics about the playtesting process. (I'm only allowed to say I was a playtester, in fact, because the ship has been released and it's right there in black and white.) I will say that, IMO, FFG does a remarkable job with playtesting, as the possible combinations and permutations mount up.

I can imagine a couple of people are going, " ... Wait, wut?" both because I'm openly critical of FFG in some cases (like the JM5K and 1/2 MoV) and because things really are starting to slip through that are not balanced well. But (1) most people simply don't have any idea how many combinations and permutations are possible in X-Wing, and how quickly the number grows with every single expansion, and (2) I'm critical of FFG's response once it's clear something is broken; I'm not critical of their design team (including playtesters) otherwise.

So, anyway, I can't share even a sanitized version, except to reiterate this: I thought the JM5K was "good, but not too good." I was wrong.

I can accept that. Good on you to say when you are wrong too. Though, in this case, its not so much an opinion or even your own total responsibility.

7 hours ago, Rinzler in a Tie said:

I would like to see the statistics on the number of players taking Parattanni to the regional to begin with.
Is it winning while being the most prevalent list at these regionals? Or is it winning these regionals despite being a minority list-type?

I have a feeling it is the former.

I can only speak for the one regional I've been to, Vancouver BC. Paratanni made up just under 5% of lists in attendance, yet 75% of top 4, and 100% of final table. I say that with the caveat that all 3 people that took it are very good X-wing players (one being the 2 time Vancouver Regional champion).

Use this anecdote any way you'd like, but I am in no way calling for a nerf, simply pointing out that from the statistics in that event, it appears to be a very good list.

6 hours ago, Blue Five said:

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.

No, that honor belongs to Sable Gryphon's "Last Winter's Night." At least when someone explains the origin of Paratanni's name it makes sense. There is nothing about Palp shuttle, inquisitor, omega leader, Wampa that is any way relevant to that name. It sounds like the name of an orchestral black metal album or something.

I think Last Winters Night is Omega Lease, Wampa, and four crackshot blacks.

6 hours ago, WWHSD said:

I think Paratini doesn't get the same hate as Dengaroo because it doesn't really do anything other than toss around focus tokens. There's nothing specific that feels broken about Paratani.

Apart from stressing the whole list, blocking 2 out of 3 ships and still everyone gets a focus token and one model gets two?

Parattani isn't as much a negative play experience as other meta lists in the past; or perhaps more importantly, it doesn't flat-out stomp any ships out of the meta. Defenders, for example, piss me off because they make it insanely difficult to fly Rebel jousters; there's just no way to keep up with that efficiency. Dengaroo just mashes a TIE swarm. Paratanni, meanwhile, doesn't kill off anything that wasn't already dead.

That said, I freakin' hate Mindlink at this point. It's just so cancerous to lay down stress or blocks and then realize that it doesn't even slightly matter. I love playing Rebel Control, which has already been dead for a while . . . and let's just say Mindlink doesn't exactly help with that issue. The problem with the game at this point is just action-independent dice mods; you can't shut down Mindlink, you can't shut down x7, you can't shut down Palp, you can't shut down Zuckuss, you can't shut down Sabine . . .

Sensing a theme?

Easy fix for Mindlink? Keep the limitation on focus tokens -- you only get one if you don't have one -- but lose the limitation on stress; i.e., each time one ship is stressed, every ship is stressed. Suddenly it's actually worth the one point you pay.

Or just remove Scum Only. Hardcore power creep, but we're a bit past worrying about that at this point.

2 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I'm critical of FFG's response once it's clear something is broken; I'm not critical of their design team (including playtesters) otherwise.

I agree with this a lot. If you've not got a massively watertight 'future league'-style playtesting/R&D structure then you need to at least be responsive to the inevitable issues that will slip through the net.

2 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

Easy fix for Mindlink?

Small ship only, maybe.

I like the Small Ship suggestion, at least in the short term. I would hit Paratanni, although I'm not sure it takes a HUGE amount off Fangaroo - they can still Mindlink the Protectorates and PTL Manaroo (or something like that), then when Manaroo passes her Focus both will get it. It won't change the list a huge deal.

In the long term it just means you've created a massive restriction that you can't make any more good small ships for Scum, or they'll make Mindlink a problem again.

If you make Attani Mindlink not work with the only for sure pilot who is the right species (Manaroo), I think that would be a bad fix.

I think the best question is: Why is Parattani so good?

1) It has a very tough ace with insane spike damage

2) It has very good action economy and doesn't care about bumping or being blocked most of the time

3) It has a 10 health, 2 agi tank that can stop up to 4 damage of a single attack, that can just fly circles around the opponent. Asajj simply counters most other Mindlink and PTL lists, because you simply can't kill her.

All of this together just makes it an incredibly tough list to deal with, with no real obvious counters like Palp Aces or Jumps used to have. And it's a pretty easy list to fly , just don't do stupid things with Fenn.

X-Wing has become a game about pressure points, and how much you can exert either unbreakable strength or unstoppable force on those points.

Although in many ways it's superficially different Paratanni is fundamentally a reskin of Palp Aces from last year, with the ranged support ability of Manaroo meaning the list can exert additional resources at the point of most need to become either unbreakable or unstoppable - precisely what Palpatine brought to the Aces.

What is has that Aces DOESN'T have is most of the key vulnerabilities that people would target, such as stress, bumping, slow shuttle and low health aces.

45 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

X-Wing has become a game about pressure points, and how much you can exert either unbreakable strength or unstoppable force on those points.

Although in many ways it's superficially different Paratanni is fundamentally a reskin of Palp Aces from last year, with the ranged support ability of Manaroo meaning the list can exert additional resources at the point of most need to become either unbreakable or unstoppable - precisely what Palpatine brought to the Aces.

What is has that Aces DOESN'T have is most of the key vulnerabilities that people would target, such as stress, bumping, slow shuttle and low health aces.

In a way it's a combination of the support Palp gives Aces with the durability of triple X7 list in that it has durability that is very hard to work around.

1 hour ago, Sarcon said:

1) It has a very tough ace with insane spike damage

2) It has very good action economy and doesn't care about bumping or being blocked most of the time

3) It has a 10 health, 2 agi tank that can stop up to 4 damage of a single attack, that can just fly circles around the opponent. Asajj simply counters most other Mindlink and PTL lists, because you simply can't kill her.

All of this together just makes it an incredibly tough list to deal with, with no real obvious counters like Palp Aces or Jumps used to have. And it's a pretty easy list to fly , just don't do stupid things with Fenn.

However, they can't really dodge arcs the way the old palpaces lists can and two of the ships have middling-low PS.

Prattanni atleast requires some notion of flying skills while Dengaroo or before that tripboats did not.
I've faced it a few times and while most of the time its an utter nightmare to face, ive had it crumble laughably fast because they did something stupid with Fenn (yes...fly into my snapshot hoard..i dare you..wait seriously he did? LOL)

Every card for Paratanni is a scum card, is it not? I mean, they all come in one scum pack or another...

Just saying...

Manaroo's ride is just flat out better than the shuttle, to a massive degree. The J5K is easily the most undercosted platform in the game. And her ability when combined with Mindlink to enable double focus is almost as strong

Soontir wanted to be at range 1 against a lot of lists, both to up his offense and because it's easier to arc dodge when you're closer in. Fenn is even better at range 1, has an extra hull, and a more open dial since he can actually do whites when he wants to. He's not as good a closer but that's why you have...

Asajj like Soontir or Lockdown is crazy tanky in the end game and if it boils down to a one on one situation there's a very good chance you literally will not be able to hurt her. 2 auto evades and a decent chance of rolling one means less than 4 reds is unlikely to do much. Not that she's short on HP. On top of that she adds stress control that helps it immensely vs some lists. Like for example old Palp aces where she makes PTLing anywhere near her an iffy prospect.

2 hours ago, costi said:

Apart from stressing the whole list, blocking 2 out of 3 ships and still everyone gets a focus token and one model gets two?

Even with those focus tokens they are still just turning eyeballs into hits/evades. There are plenty of abilities that allow modification even if a ship can't take actions.

The stress and the action denial is a big deal even if it doesn't seem like it. When only one ship is getting an action, no one is target locking, evading, repositioning or moving their mobile arcs.

Mindlink lists with Manaroo have a lot of focus tokens rolling around but focus tokens still need you to roll eyeballs to be any use.

If you can keep applying stress it does really hurt Paratini. Having to ditch stress every few rounds is usually no big deal but having to pull green manuever every round gets old fast. The stressbot on either an ARC-170 with Gunner or a BTL-A4 Y-Wing can double stress a ship in a Mindlink list one round, and then in the next rounds split up its attacks to double strss two ships. That's a horrible spot to be in running an Attani list.

It is in the form of Zuckuss hate.

Only if the not-double-stressed ships can't use one of their many green maneuvers in rd2. Its less ideal than having an entire dial open, but double stressing one of the Mindlink ships in the first firing exchange isn't bad for the opponent on the level of a double stressed Fel or Inquisitor or other Imperial ace who is now relying entirely on greens and 1 palpatine mod.

Still, if Parattani and other Mindlinks keep winning major events stress control might be something people try. I don't know, unless you can constantly keep the entire list double or triple stressed its hard to picture the list not clearing enough stress to at least have 4 focuses among the 3 ships.

31 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

If you can keep applying stress it does really hurt Paratini. Having to ditch stress every few rounds is usually no big deal but having to pull green manuever every round gets old fast. The stressbot on either an ARC-170 with Gunner or a BTL-A4 Y-Wing can double stress a ship in a Mindlink list one round, and then in the next rounds split up its attacks to double strss two ships. That's a horrible spot to be in running an Attani list.

Asajj and Fenn tend to melt low agility ships ridiculously fast and both find it fairly easy to doughnut hole the stresshog meaning it's only going to be handing out one stress while it's still alive. Agreed that being stressed all the time is still annoying to Parattani but it's not even close to crippling and stress control ships rely on crippling things since they're otherwise meh. Even stressed to the gills you can expect a focus on everyone plus an extra for Fenn since Manaroo won't go anywhere near the stress dealer and she's far more maneuverable than them.

32 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

It is in the form of Zuckuss hate.

But nobody runs Zuckuss in mindlink builds.

7 minutes ago, spacelion said:

But nobody runs Zuckuss in mindlink builds.

I do, funny enough