Yes, another topic about the new faq, but as far as i'm concerned, i haven't seen a single topic with constructive talking.

I want to analyse the 4 nerfs, see how they impact the game and if it could have been done differently.

I'll talk the same way about all the 4 card :

1) were it was in the meta, what could we do about it.

2) how the nerf will impact the game.

3) was it deserved ? How it could have been done differently ?

Zukus :

1) if not the most played card, it was indeed a powerfull card. I've seen it in 25% of the list of my last tournament and only on a fat bosk. This was the highest % i ever seen it, usualy it's around 10-15% the real problem with this card was manaroo giving him the focus+TL even if already over stressed and allowing bosk to keep hitting hard even if over stressed. Also, it's possible to use it with expertise, i never seen it yet, probably because a fat bosk already cost a lot.

2) well, i believe this nerf should slightly reduce the number of list with zukus but it's still viable as a "you won't get away with it". One of my friends believed that nothing could one shot a palpi ace, i took a fat bosk and did killed sontir in a single blow, not once but 20 time in a row... yes, it can be only done once every few round, but still if he get a single opportunity to shot, he will deal a lot of damages and loosing a 35 pt sontir for a 1 pt ability ? Still woth it even after the nerf.

Also, there's already an answer to that problem, it's inspiring recrue, give it to any ship and you will remove 2 stress, or even more (you can use as many as you want of this crew). Reroll 2 dice every turn ? Yes zukus is not dead.

3)i can't say it wasn't deserved, it's exactly what i was suggesting for this card! FFG could have nerfed it by limiting the number of stress you can get that way, but this nerf would probably still need the one done here... nothing to add here, well done.

Tie X7:

1) ok.. this one is obvious... weirdly i haven't seen a single list with it on my last tournament, but all the others this year were between 30 to 40% with a record of 75% on a 30 people tournament ! I believe it's safe to say it was over played because of how effecient it was. Of course there's a few counter, carnor could prevent them from spending it, but not from getting it since it wasn't an action. Old teroc could deal with it, but getting in range one with a tie deffender is quite dangerous even with a protectora starfighter... there's no real hard counter about it, except outplaying your opponent...

2) this nerf is quite hard, it surely make the list less efficient and specially against a list that stress the opponent (rebel prisoner, mara jade, ventress, ...), it create a specific weakness that can come from a lot of different list... but it's not making it incredibly weak either, most of the get a stress mechanic can be avoided by a way or another, only rebel captive can't, but you ca. Shot on something else before and if you don't, at least you planned to get the stress.

anyway, no more 75% of tie defender, but i don't think they are dead, except if a new list as broken as this one come. But i hope FFG won't fail that much again.

3) totaly deserved, i don't think the list is dead, but i believe we won't see it much... only those who did trully loved the list and some very good players that can avoid collision a d stress will play it again. Another way would have been to change the cost so we can't play 3 tie deffender again...but this would kill the list, ot bring it to balance and this is something i don't want.

Manaroo :

1) well, almost every single list that didn't include a tie defender included manaroo this last year... quite often with a fat bosk (see zukus). I believe thoses two cards managed to get into at least90% of all the list this last year. FFG is right about this card, it need a nerf because the only way to counter this card was to kill the ship... cards like carnor and old teroc were powerless against it since you decide to transfer the tokkens at the start of the combat phase, you already know where they are !

2) if the tie defender nerf was hard and deserved but not to much... this one is a massacre... i did played this ship only in 1 or maybe 2 friendly game as i don't like it much... however i feel like palpi-ace was nerfed here...it come from the very powerfull to the almost useless! This is a big ship, staying at range 1 of a smallest ally like fenrau is stupid and difficult, staying at range one of bosk is just saying "hit me please". I believe they killed the pilot and the jump master is now limited to dengar (and with the tie defender and manaroo nerf, he will come back)

3) nerf deserved ? Yes but not that much! It's dead and only people who didn't read the faq yet will come with it in the next few tournaments, we won't see it anymore after 2 to 3 month, except maybe some beginners who didn't read the faq or who doesn't know there's a faq. I'm not sure about a proper nerf here, but there's two way to nerf her. You can give it a range limit, but 1-2 or 1-3 would be way better (1-2 sound the best one), or you could limit the transfert to 1 tokken... not very pleased about it

palpi : warning : i was playing this a lot. Meaning i'm not subjective here...

1) i was a palpi ace player, i even did played it last week in a friendly match, however, the last time i saw this list in a tournament was 1 month before the wave 9 release and i was the only player with it at the tournament... the last other player i've seen plaing it was 14 month ago ! (Well it was palpi sontir vador) and i don't remember a single list with palpi wich wasn't an ace list. I left it to play a triple concord dawn list (because i love mando and that was mando arc dodger) just to realise the list was already dead...

there's many way to counter it, from the boba crew with advanced homing missile, crack shot that force you to waste your palpi to avoid losing the cloacking to the recently nerfed fat bosk (i did test a sontir (with palpi power) vs bosk to prove a point at a friend, bosk killed sontir in 1 attack every time ! Palpi can't save this, even after the nerf) but this is not the only way to counter this list, asajj ventress is a palpi ace killer, you can't push the limit with her... and if you do, you better win the game this turn... once you have 2 sress on a interceptor, you are defensless, palpi can't save you if you have no focus, no evade, no boost and no barrel roll.

as long as i never saw palpi without something else than a ace, anything that counter them counter palpatine.

2) i might have ignored the upsilone here, but this ship was released about 10 days ago in my country and there was no tournament around my city since. I've no idea if a offensive palpi (wich could make sens on a 4 dice ship) is a thing or not... but i think it's over cost compared to a Many attack upgrade cards and even if it exist, i don't think it could ever be really competitive.

since it wasn't played any more, the only effect on the meta is to prevent a palpi ace to ever return.

3) even if i'm in a small country and i don't like to watch video of top players, i believe that 14 month of no palpi ace (outside of my self) is clearly showing how much this nerf exist only due to FFG who finally decided to start nerfing and improving (yes, i look at you M3A heavy scyk) cards and took a look to how much hate palpi used to generate. It might have been a powerfull card in the past.

this nerf make it look like a c3p0... i bet i won't get the result i want/need so i use my joker to make the odds better once... ok it's still better because you can use it while attacking or defending, you are unlikly to get a full crits (calling a crit is hardly a waste if the ennemy have no more shield) and you don't need to bet the correct result... but he doesn't allow to get one extra dodge (remember when the yt1300 needed 3 dodge to survive, you had the token and did bet 1 dodge hoping to get one and survive ? Palpi won't do it)

however, it cost 2 crew slot and 5 extra points ! Anyone have seen a c3p0 recently ? I didn't... why we would pay 5 more for a slightly better version of it ? I won't, you won't and probably no one would outside of thoses who doesn't know the faq.

with it's cost and all the counter that exist, there's no need to nerf him... and if you do it this way, at least reduce it's cost to 4 pt.

one last thing, with all the nerf they did and will do... please, nerf asajj ventress... this ship might not be the most powerfull one (even if i see around 20% of players with her) but her ability to stress an already stressed ship is really too powerfull against the arc dodger at a point that if she's not nerfed, we won't see any arc dodger again... 1 pilote vs 1 category of ship... make your choice, mine go for the diversity.

38 minutes ago, Lycia said:

one last thing, with all the nerf they did and will do... please, nerf asajj ventress... this ship might not be the most powerfull one (even if i see around 20% of players with her) but her ability to stress an already stressed ship is really too powerfull against the arc dodger at a point that if she's not nerfed, we won't see any arc dodger again... 1 pilote vs 1 category of ship... make your choice, mine go for the diversity.

It's an arc dodger, dodge Ventress's mobile arc or stay at range three so she can't stress you. If you can't get out of her mobile arc maybe don't PTL that round?

1 hour ago, Lycia said:

Also, it's possible to use it with expertise, i never seen it yet, probably because a fat bosk already cost a lot.

The old Zuckuss didn't work so well with Expertise because you just planned on being under a pile of stress after the first use of Zuckuss, but Expertise only works while you are not stressed. With the new Zuckuss, I've put this together at 44 points:

Bossk (35)
-Expertise (4)
-Zuckuss (1)
-Inspiring Recruit (1)
-K4 Security Droid (3)

You can modify your dice with Target Lock and Expertise before you trigger Zuckuss. When you use Zuckuss, you only choose to reroll a maximum of 2 dice. You execute a green maneuver the next turn to clear off both stress tokens, getting you a TL with K4, enabling Expertise to trigger again, and allowing you to take a focus token for defense. But 44 points is pretty hefty.

4 hours ago, Budgernaut said:

The old Zuckuss didn't work so well with Expertise because you just planned on being under a pile of stress after the first use of Zuckuss, but Expertise only works while you are not stressed. With the new Zuckuss, I've put this together at 44 points:

Bossk (35)
-Expertise (4)
-Zuckuss (1)
-Inspiring Recruit (1)
-K4 Security Droid (3)

You can modify your dice with Target Lock and Expertise before you trigger Zuckuss. When you use Zuckuss, you only choose to reroll a maximum of 2 dice. You execute a green maneuver the next turn to clear off both stress tokens, getting you a TL with K4, enabling Expertise to trigger again, and allowing you to take a focus token for defense. But 44 points is pretty hefty.

But if you play against Asaj and didnt dodge her arc or stayed at range 3, you will get stressed at the start of the combat phase, shutting down both Expertise and Zuckuss.

• Zuckuss:
  Just look at all other 1 point crew cards and compare their effects and limitations with the original text of Zuckuss. The effect of Zuckuss is essentially to make the defender's green dice have 1.125 faces with an evade symbol instead of 3 faces. That is huge, and wasn't limited to arc, distance, times per round, weapon type, or stress. Combined with other stuff (that Scum has access to) that makes the carrying ship not care about stress, it was a totally broken card.
  The rebalancing doesn't touch its original effect, only how often you can use this card. For its cost, it still has huge value.
• TIE/x7:
  The problem with this one is that there was just nothing that the opponent could do to prevent the triggering of this effect, and it's a very powerful effect almost on par with regen (that for a 3 agility, 6 health ship, it's awesome). Only ionizing (or very particular pilot abilities) could work effectively as a counter, and ionizing required an successful attack (that is hard to achieve because of the effect itself of this card), or a particular build with conner nets (that limits very much what you have to include in your list to have a chance against these guys).
  The rebalancing doesn't lessen its original effect, only adds two ways for the opponent to prevent it from happening: blocking or stressing.
• Manaroo:
  Buffing abilities are always following this pattern: Great=Range 1. Okay=Range 1-2. Mediocre=Range 1-3. You can check other pilots in the game to see the trend, like Lando or Biggs. The closest examples I can think of right now are Share Bey, Esege Tuketu, or Kyle Katarn, all of them limited by range, to a single token or a single type of token. In the case of Manaroo, it was unlimited range, all tokens of 3 different kinds.
  The problem with Manaroo is that not only her ability was just much much better than any other similar ability in the game. Also, she is on a ship that is much much better for the price than any other similar ships in the game. So the developers had to take that into consideration. Since they seem unable to change ship costs, they opted to balance it out by lowering the value of the ability. Still, Manaroo ends with a pilot ability that is much better than other similar ones. Considering that the ship can barrel roll and has one of the best dials in the game, it shouldn't be too hard to keep her withing range 1 of someone in her squad.
• Emperor Palpatine:
  This is similar to the /x7 case. Most of complains about Palpatine is that it gives extra durability to ships that already are great at mitigating incoming damage. Sure, it costs 29 points cheapest, but there are few other things in the game that can do that task for that price. Palpatine allows for a guaranteed evade result on a ship that could be already equipping Authothrusters, have an evade token, focus token, etc. What other ship or upgrade can negate so much damage during an entire game, without range limitation? This led to become an autoinclude. If you brought aces, you had to bring Palpatine, because bringing another different ship was always just worse than bringing Palpatine. This in turn led to a meta with unhittable aces that made many other ships ineffective against them (X-Wings, B-Wings, G-1As, etc... 3 red dice, modified, were just not enough!), and in turn force everyone to respond with the same, or with autodamage lists (K-Wings with bombs, autoblasters), or exploit broken cards (Zuckuss), than in turn led to the weakest aces to be replaced with just sturdier aces (Soontir replaced with Defenders or other shielded ships), and so on and on.
  The rebalancing of this card just adds the little detail of the player having to commit to use it with one ship before he totally knows whether he totally needs it or not. It is still one guaranteed evade result for one ship per round (or attack result, but that is almost secondary). It's only that you need to decide which ship is going to get it, and you cannot change your mind if it happens that you were extremely lucky with your roll and didn't need it, or you were extremely unlucky with your roll and it didn't make any difference.
  It is still extremely powerful, but it's just toned a notch down so that Palpaces are just a bit less untouchable.
  Now, is it still worth a 29 point ship? Well, we need to ask ourselves. Can it pay for its 29 points during a game? Are there alternatives? If the answer to these questions is "Yes", then the rebalancing has been good, because it means that it is still good, but it's not an autoinclude.

21 hours ago, Budgernaut said:

The old Zuckuss didn't work so well with Expertise because you just planned on being under a pile of stress after the first use of Zuckuss, but Expertise only works while you are not stressed. With the new Zuckuss, I've put this together at 44 points:

mmmm... you're right, it was a bit late and i took a lot of time to write that much, sorry for that mistake.

15 hours ago, Azrapse said:

• Manaroo:
  Buffing abilities are always following this pattern: Great=Range 1. Okay=Range 1-2. Mediocre=Range 1-3. [...] Considering that the ship can barrel roll and has one of the best dials in the game, it shouldn't be too hard to keep her withing range 1 of someone in her squad.
• Emperor Palpatine:
  It is still extremely powerful, but it's just toned a notch down so that Palpaces are just a bit less untouchable.
  Now, is it still worth a 29 point ship? Well, we need to ask ourselves. Can it pay for its 29 points during a game? Are there alternatives? If the answer to these questions is "Yes", then the rebalancing has been good, because it means that it is still good, but it's not an autoinclude.

You're right about the barrel roll, however, i've seen her being played with atanni mind link quite often so she can give her focus to both bosk and fen rau. You can't really do both a focus and a barrel roll under those conditions, not if you want a focus. I'm really not sure that the range 1 limitation would be good enough to let her stay viable in the meta. Still playable on friendly game and this is better than some ships/pilotes of course (yes i look at you Star Viper).

Concerning the range pattern, Jan Ors (pilot) is a 1-3 range and it's quite powrfull, maybe the ship is a bit weak (I already lost it in 1 shot thanks to Zukuss) but she also did some wonders.

Concerning palpatine, how can you hit something when the something is not played anymore ? yes it was powerful, everything you said is true, but it does have a few counters.

It's like if they were nerfing howlrunner because she make the tie swarm way to viable... yes a tie swarm need howlrunner, it's an "auto include". But does she need a nerf ? i haven't seen a tie swarm for 2 years at least.

22 hours ago, WWHSD said:

It's an arc dodger, dodge Ventress's mobile arc or stay at range three so she can't stress you. If you can't get out of her mobile arc maybe don't PTL that round?

did you played an arc dodger against her ? If you prefer, her power is extremely punitive, not only for arc dodgers but for every mechanics that required to have no stress. (honestly, you believe that forcing all the arc dodger to (sometime) stick at 1 action and only green manoeuver is not powerfull ? please remember that she have the best dial of the game ! also she is most certainly not alone)

Sciencius gave a very good exemple with expertise, she does deny a 4 points upgrade card + she will force you to do a green maneuver if you want a chance to use it on your next turn making it way easier to predict your manoeuver. and if you got a stress for a reason or another before or after that (you get hit by a tractor beam and pushed on a debris ?)... you will never see your actions again, nor expertise nor anything like that.

She's denying way too many cards to stay that way.

30 minutes ago, Lycia said:

did you played an arc dodger against her ? If you prefer, her power is extremely punitive, not only for arc dodgers but for every mechanics that required to have no stress.

Sciencius gave a very good exemple with expertise, she does deny a 4 points upgrade card + she will force you to do a green maneuver if you want a chance to use it on your next turn making it way easier to predict your manoeuver. and if you got a stress for a reason or another before or after that (you get hit by a tractor beam and pushed on a debris ?)... you will never see your actions again, nor expertise nor anything like that.

She's denying way too many cards to stay that way.

A lot of upgrade cards and pilot abilities get countered by other upgrades and pilot abilities. That's the way this game works. Expertise itself counters all of the pilot abilities that steal focus tokens or prevent you from spending them.

I'm not going to shed any tears over a ship that makes high PS arc dodgers nervous. Especially when what makes them nervous about her can be counter played by arc dodging and range control. Ventress is only PS6 and if she wants to move her arc before she shoots it costs an action to do so. If she wants to shed stress then she has to go fast or go straight (and still moves fairly fast).

Ventress is fine. She's going to be 40-50 points of a squad so she should be a threat. Just learn to deal with her.