1 hour ago, ThalanirIII said:

What I think is the issue, is unbalanced power creep. Rebels by and large aren't getting regularly to the top tables. Yavin showed this, by having 1 rebel list in the top 8. Admittedly, rebels have varied lists, but none are top tier like paratanni or x7s.

1 more than the Empire managed!

I know this thread is called "why are Rebels struggling" but there should be another thread called "why are Imperials with less than 6 wings struggling".

I genuinely think Rebels have got way more viable options than Imperials do right now. WAY more.

33 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I genuinely think Rebels have got way more viable options than Imperials do right now. WAY more.

I don't disagree with that. More options, but maybe not better options. This ties into what Cerve brought up on page 2. Compared to a lot of lists, Parattanni is easy to fly. Defenders are easy to fly. There's not much to think about with those. Yes, you still have to FLY them, but you're not thinking much about actions. There's nothing to forget to do. You're not even all that concerned about being blocked with those lists. You're spending almost all your time thinking about positioning, that's it. You don't have to consider if "this" happens, then I can do "this", but if "THAT" happens, then I have to do "THIS". You just fly and shoot. That's also why 4 TLT Y's is a thing again...you fly and shoot.

Maybe that's the lure. They're not only efficient lists, but they're also easy to fly. That means a ton of people are going to gravitate toward it, which means there will be that many more of those lists at any given event.

So what meets that criteria for Rebels? Kanan/Biggs is pretty similar. I've flown it a few times...it's a **** beast, haven't lost with it...and it's boring as hell to fly. What about a efficient, 3-ship Rebel build which is easy to fly and each ship is a threat onto themselves?

Honestly, there are two options:

1) Make a new ship or "fix" an existing ship (E-Wing seems to be the ideal choice) to be the easy option for Rebels.

2) Make Squadron bonuses that make flying multiple of the same type of ship easier. For example, if FFG made Rogue Squadron into a squadron bonus for t-65s that allows token sharing, or stress resistance, or even ability sharing (just examples off the top of my head), that would provide an easy way to fly for Rebels and can be a way to bring less used ships back in with potentially fewer unforeseen combos.

3 hours ago, ThalanirIII said:

Why pay for a blocker though? Mindlink = who cares? Defenders = who cares? Even Dengaroo, unless you block manaroo which is pretty difficult, who cares?

This is not entirely accuarate though. For Parattanni (which seems to be the main issue of AM), blocking one ship ripples a bit. If you block a ship, that means it cannot focus so another ship has to do it. If you make Assaj focus she cannot move her mobile arc to activate her pilot ability (and most of the time that means to Latts or Evade token). If you make Fenn focus, he cannot use his action to resposition, which may keep him out of the R1/R3 zones he wants to be in.

So blocking is still a good thing, even if it is not quite as powerful as it would be against a ship without AM.

I keep hearing that blocking isn't useful in general, but I guess that means it's not AS useful as before I got into the game (last October/November). I would still think robbing Parattanni of actions or Defenders of K-turns and actions would be useful.

7 hours ago, Hedgehogmech said:

Rebels have always tended towards mid-range ships - more emphasis on firepower than active defence, and more hull and shields than rather than maneuverability and repositioning.

Unfortunately recent waves have seen massive increases in both damage output and damage absorption. This means that Rebels now struggle to do enough damage, can't move out of the way, and basically have a timer in which to win a game because their ships can't completely tank attacks.

Note that this issue is NOT limited to the Rebel faction. There are many Imperial and S&V ships that are affected by the same issue - Firespray, Y-wing, Z-95, TIE fighters, and so on. Rebels also have a few notable exceptions (i.e. the K-wing bomber and some Ghost builds).

What Rebels don't really have though is a decent variety of ships that are still effective to choose from. A lot of their staples have gone such as regen - as discussed this is mostly dead because it's beaten by 'surge' damage. K-wings work well, but they're weird because it almost doesn't feel like you're playing X-wing. The Ghost can work, but often it's a giant TLT carrier. And the classic starfighters (A-wing, B-wing, X-wing, Y-wing) are almost nowhere to be found.

A-wings nowhere to be found, except in the semi's of the worlds last year and the Chihuahua lists that won a handful of regionals before then too

Rebels are struggling? Huh. That's news. I'm seeing K-wings everywhere. ARCs and Falcons, too.

Must be me though. The sky is definitely falling.

I think the biggest problem is no ace - I have been looking for a wingman for my ghost (32 points to spend) and the best I can find is Arvel (A-wing). He survives and gets one shot with prockets but after that, I can not push damage through on anything with 3 defence dice.

I'm pretty sure the Ace you're looking for is called Biggs. He literally lives beside Ghosts, or he certainly does every time I've seen him...

Rebels primarily suffer from low agi ships. Theres too many high dice attacks now, making 9HP ships laughably squishy. Rebel Regen doesnt mean anything if you blew up in 1-2 shots.

They still have competitive lists, but they all feel the same. Fat PWTs, Kwing bombers, and regen.

3 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

They still have competitive lists, but they all feel the same. Fat PWTs, Kwing bombers, and regen.

This is the argument I regularly hear: Rebels only have 2 or 3 high level lists at the moment. Thing is, so do both Imps and Scum. Currently, Scum is either Asajj and <insert wingman here> or Fenn and <insert distraction wingman here>. Imperials are currently Defenders and... well, other Defenders. There's a handful of slightly off kilter lists like Vessery/Quickdraw/Sabacc, but pretty much everything features a Defender somewhere.

Saying Rebels are suffering just isn't true. They're less prevalent right now, but they're also showing a higher skill ceiling than they have been for a while (bombing K-wings takes a ton of practice and spacial awareness. It's not just "slam and plop", as many people seem to think), which is - I think - partly why there's a reduced number playing them, vs the action efficient Defenders, or the punishingly flexible Scum lists.

2 minutes ago, NakedDex said:

Saying Rebels are suffering just isn't true. They're less prevalent right now, but they're also showing a higher skill ceiling than they have been for a while (bombing K-wings takes a ton of practice and spacial awareness. It's not just "slam and plop", as many people seem to think), which is - I think - partly why there's a reduced number playing them, vs the action efficient Defenders, or the punishingly flexible Scum lists.

Well, some research begs to differ on the Rebels struggling.

But, like you suggested, it probably goes back to what I said before...the prominent Scum and Imp lists are just easier to fly, so there are probably more of them out there.

2 hours ago, SabineKey said:

Honestly, there are two options:

1) Make a new ship or "fix" an existing ship (E-Wing seems to be the ideal choice) to be the easy option for Rebels.

But won't people then just say there isn't enough Rebel ships?

@NakedDex That also casually counter rebels. Youre right theres a much higher skillcap for rebels right now and that is most of the issue, but the primary reason for that high skill cap is dodging the stupidly high attack dice coming from agile platforms . I can deal with Fenn pretty reliably as Imps/Scum but ive yet to find a way to deal with him as rebels that isnt dedicating my entire list to it. Fast enough to catch anything rebels have even w/o boost and will either flatout 1shot them or bring them down to a thread of life.

When they depend mostly on their bulk to survive and things can basically ignore their bulk they have to vastly outplay their opponent. And most rebel ships simply dont have the dial to mindgame people to think theyre doing one thing and instead do another. Awings and the TIE and anything that has Hera crew are the only rebel ships that tend to do something i didnt expect for rebels, the rest are so obvious its sickening.

50 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

[...] Youre right theres a much higher skillcap for rebels right now and that is most of the issue, [...]

Not very long ago I was talking to a long time poster. We where talking about Rebels and why the Imperials were never seen in tournaments. The issue was two fold. One was that you can't trust flicked dice, which the Imperial rely on because of their lack of shields. And because of the first issue it took much higher skill to play the Empire's ships. With the Rebels having access to to turrets, tanky turrets (Falcon), regen, etc., they were the best, point for point, and the Imperials suffered.

Now it is the Rebellion ships that take skill to fly. Things do change.

4 minutes ago, Ken at Sunrise said:

But won't people then just say there isn't enough Rebel ships?

I think almost certainly. And that's the potential problem with singular fixes. You make something that's great, people will gravitate to it for ease (most of the time, not always). You see a lot of Defenders because the other Imp ships just don't have the durability against the autodamage tricks out in the meta, so people say "Defenders killed diversity!" and the like.

No matter what FFG does to try to help the situation, there will be players who are dissatisfied and/or don't like the fix. It all comes down to what you want: a forgiving, strong for Rebels consisting of few types of ships or the need to cultivate the strengths of a variety of different ship types?

In light of this thread I find it ironic that the new X-wing 101 article has a favorite list with Biggs equipping R2-D2?

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/2/24/x-wing-101-fly-with-the-world-champ/

I don't really feel they are struggling at the moment. They have competitive and non-competitive lists just like the rest of the factions.