12 hours ago, Draconis Hegemonia said:

Private Nemo:
I have a few post faq games, all with imperial vs imperial (In my house we are people of goodwill), trying multiple things.
And actually, I haven't find any imperial ship better than the x7 defender. The gap with the other contendants are narrower now, but, without any combo in mind, if i have thirtyfew points a x7 Defender is still the optimal value, good defense, good offense, fast...
Defenders D are now a thing, the bombers are good, inquisitor, omega leader, a pair of crackshot ties, upsilon... all do fine in a competitive enviroment, even whisper, soontir or Vader can still hold his land if they are well flown. But none of the above, nor anything I could find is obviously better than a X7 Defender, even after the faq.

I doesn't play enought with SF or strikers to be shure. And I'm not find myself as a top player to be sure. But if post nerf, the defenders are gonna dissapear from the competitive imperial meta, really, I don't how what is gonna replace them.

Try the sf, specificaly Quickdraw with Expertise, Baffle, titel. That is one hell of a ship!

Not Rage/Baffle?

I found it to not be flexible enough. Rage means you have to baffle every turn you want to do damage - that doesn't add up when you are being shot at. With Expertise you can take a revenge shot upon being hit that still has focus mods.

3 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

I found it to not be flexible enough. Rage means you have to baffle every turn you want to do damage - that doesn't add up when you are being shot at. With Expertise you can take a revenge shot upon being hit that still has focus mods.

Don't want to take this too off topic but I presently do not see the appeal of damaging yourself to take a free shot, especially when you have only six effective health to begin with.

I will admit that I have never personally flown Quickdraw, but i have flown against Quickdraw four times and each of those has gone the same:

I move.
Quickdraw moves, rages + baffles + loses a shield and fires for one, maybe two damage.
I return fire and remove the 33 - 35 point X wing from the board.

Combination of bad flying / bad pilots, not sure but I haven't seen anything from Quickdraw that makes me want to take her over Backdraft.

Back on topic:
Despite the FAQ changes, I still think Paratanni is going to be around and still strong. Manaroo will function more as a close range support or blocker now and in Old Fenn lists, either a blocker or as a missile boat once more.

1 minute ago, Viktus106 said:

Don't want to take this too off topic but I presently do not see the appeal of damaging yourself to take a free shot, especially when you have only six effective health to begin with.

I will admit that I have never personally flown Quickdraw, but i have flown against Quickdraw four times and each of those has gone the same:

I move.
Quickdraw moves, rages + baffles + loses a shield and fires for one, maybe two damage.
I return fire and remove the 33 - 35 point X wing from the board.

Combination of bad flying / bad pilots, not sure but I haven't seen anything from Quickdraw that makes me want to take her over Backdraft.

Back on topic:
Despite the FAQ changes, I still think Paratanni is going to be around and still strong. Manaroo will function more as a close range support or blocker now and in Old Fenn lists, either a blocker or as a missile boat once more.

The quickdraw thing is more in the context of giving a pretty strong alpha strike capability, especially against PS9 aces when you have initiative and can shoot before they get tokens.

I wouldn't say it's amazing value in most games, but when it's there, it's very useful. As you say, he's defensively pretty mediocre and not very maneuverable and will get dunked on to prevent a second use of his ability.

1 minute ago, Viktus106 said:

Don't want to take this too off topic but I presently do not see the appeal of damaging yourself to take a free shot, especially when you have only six effective health to begin with.

I will admit that I have never personally flown Quickdraw, but i have flown against Quickdraw four times and each of those has gone the same:

I move.
Quickdraw moves, rages + baffles + loses a shield and fires for one, maybe two damage.
I return fire and remove the 33 - 35 point X wing from the board.

That is the weakness of the Rage build. I tend to be relatively passive with Quickdraw, her ability will trigger without my influence. If my opponent ignores her, I get to baffle out some damage later, otherwise I get more use from not damaging myself. She does need other pririty targets like Rexler or Vessery with her, she won't work with a miniswarm. Unless of course that uses howlrunner...

Baffle also helps a lot with the dial.

9 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Yeah she's no longer a unique support vehicle, but she's still 'Contracted Scout: Collectors Edition'

Yeah. When evaluating whether the nerf was justified, we need two questions:

• Is the Contracted Scout a competitive and competitively priced ship?
• Are Manaroo's ability post-nerf and 1 PS worth 2 points?

If the answer to both is "yes" (and I think it is), then the nerf is perfectly reasonable.

1 minute ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

That is the weakness of the Rage build. I tend to be relatively passive with Quickdraw, her ability will trigger without my influence. If my opponent ignores her, I get to baffle out some damage later, otherwise I get more use from not damaging myself. She does need other pririty targets like Rexler or Vessery with her, she won't work with a miniswarm. Unless of course that uses howlrunner...

Baffle also helps a lot with the dial.

I think you need to treat it like Maarek, don't try to force the use of the ability, just be glad when it actually happens.

Still, Backdraft with VI, FCS, Title and Lightweight Frame seems OK for 32 points.

13 minutes ago, Viktus106 said:

I think you need to treat it like Maarek, don't try to force the use of the ability, just be glad when it actually happens.

Still, Backdraft with VI, FCS, Title and Lightweight Frame seems OK for 32 points.

Being able to trigger the ability at key points on your own is important. I wouldn't want to miss the ability to murderize Soontir Fel before he activates, for example.

5 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Being able to trigger the ability at key points on your own is important. I wouldn't want to miss the ability to murderize Soontir Fel before he activates, for example.

People still fly Soontir?

I jest and I see your point. I'm just baffled by the need to damage yourself and leave yourself stressed just to potentially damage a ship. Additionally, with the increase in Carnor Jax as opposed to Soontir, baffle-draw becomes even more redundant as he would be follow tokened up at that point.

Plus Palp.

Maybe I need to put Quickdraw on the table at some point and get a better understanding of it.

8 minutes ago, Viktus106 said:

People still fly Soontir?

I jest and I see your point. I'm just baffled by the need to damage yourself and leave yourself stressed just to potentially damage a ship. Additionally, with the increase in Carnor Jax as opposed to Soontir, baffle-draw becomes even more redundant as he would be follow tokened up at that point.

Plus Palp.

Maybe I need to put Quickdraw on the table at some point and get a better understanding of it.

Like I said, i use Expertise instead of rage and damage myself using the dial if neccessary. Rage in my experience is too one sided and doesn't work.

If you use Pattern Analyzers with the Rage/Baffles build, you essentially get to use Rage just about every turn it matters. This is the build I used at Regionals. You get approximately the same level of modification as Expertise, but you also get to self trigger a little better. High frequency use of Rage does require some self-damage, though.

I think the Expertise build is a bit better for general use now that it is available. Baffles helps keep it active even when you start getting stress, for when that matters, and lets make an extra attack in those circumstances.

38 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

If you use Pattern Analyzers with the Rage/Baffles build, you essentially get to use Rage just about every turn it matters. This is the build I used at Regionals. You get approximately the same level of modification as Expertise, but you also get to self trigger a little better. High frequency use of Rage does require some self-damage, though.

I think the Expertise build is a bit better for general use now that it is available. Baffles helps keep it active even when you start getting stress, for when that matters, and lets make an extra attack in those circumstances.

Hadn't even considered Pattern Analyzer with Rage, that is certainly an interesting idea.

10 hours ago, haslo said:

Yeah. When evaluating whether the nerf was justified, we need two questions:

• Is the Contracted Scout a competitive and competitively priced ship?
• Are Manaroo's ability post-nerf and 1 PS worth 2 points?

If the answer to both is "yes" (and I think it is), then the nerf is perfectly reasonable.

Well said. This really puts things into perspective. (and I also think the answers are yes.)