After seeing what's been spoiled, it still seems like the cost assessment for heroes is far more prohibitive for having top tier character combos, which may be the reason the game has seemed to be a villain meta.

For example Vader (Sith Lord) has almost exact same dice as Luke, but 1 health and a way better ability for 1 extra character point. He also will have 2 very good characters to pair with him after SoR, along with a suite of events that synergize with him better. I'm hoping Maz might make Luke playable.

Heroes seem to have very expensive characters who's abilities are sometimes only slightly better than their counterparts (is eQui-Gon worth the 2 character points over eDooku?). As meta is more based around 4 character dice combos it seems like if you want to play hero with top tier decks, it means you play Rey (and now Maz) + eHero of your choice. Was hoping to pair Luminara with someone, but you only have Rey, Maz & Snap for 4 dice combo. Though this could also be showing how cost effective Rey is, too.

What's everyone's thoughts on character costs between sides? Do you think SoR will make 3 dice combos more relevant? Is this due to more people desiring to play heroes and get more players to play villain?

I'm a Villain player, but even I've been highly annoyed by this disparity recently.

My friend and I agreed that he'd collect only Heroes and I would collect only Villains, since this game is expensive and collecting a set of both factions is cost prohibitive. We crack boxes together and trade for like value to ease the burden of trading. I don't even have a vested interest in Heroes, but like...at this point, I just feel bad for mah boy.

I mean, just look at Luminara for an example of this. Who is balancing these cards? Like...just looking at their standard cost formula, she's way over costed. Makes it seem like someone on the design team has an axe to grind against Heroes. She should be like 11/15 or 12/15. That 13/17 price point is just flat out incorrec t . It values her ability at 4 character points, which is silly since it's dependent on another die, and can never trigger for more than a value of 3 so like...what gives?! Come on now.

I'd prefer it if her ability were increase by 1/2 instead of 2/3, and then she was APPROPRIATELY costed at 11/14, so that you could run her as an elite version with two generics. I think she's a fun character, but this pricing is clunky, awkward, and also flat out incorrect. It's like she was designed poorly with malicious intent, by someone who REALLY hates the Rebellion.

Also, how sweet would it be if Jyn Erso had 1 less health and a cost of 14/19 instead of 15/20? If you could protect her super amazing ability and above average die behind 2 Rebel Troopers, that deck would be in a fantastic spot. It'd be really fun and Jyn Erso could steal the show, all game long. Instead we have another case of this weird, intentionally clunky(?) price point where you can only slot her in as an Elite behind 1 Rebel Trooper, giving you a slightly better die but a way shallower health pool, or with another 15pt character, meaning you don't have a built in way to defend the value she represents. Most heroes suffer from this problem. Like...it can't be an accident. It feels like the designers are intentionally designing AROUND the 8pt generics at this point.

I feel bad for Heroes because they have very solid generics who can slot in around characters to create a massive variety of good, good decks, but the only elite Heroes they can field under 14pts are Maz, Ackbar, Mon Mathma, and Rey. Maz, Mon and Ackbar are great, but only really have support dice and not aggro dice, and Rey's dice doesn't play super well outside mono blue, since other colors don't have melee grunts to toss in with her. I just want you poor Hero players to experience that joy I've found in the hyper efficient General Veers, that's all. Why so expensive, FFG? What's up?

I'm disappointed that Heroes got neither a cheap ranged aggro character (elite at 14pts or less) or a cheap-ish melee character of red or yellow to assist Rey. Heroes really needed one of those two things, imo. Like, heroes would be golden if they had FN-2199 or a Tusken Raider.

Blah! /endrant

Great discussion topic. I can't say I've done any "scientific analysis", but the above points seem to be valid and I've had similar experiences/impressions.

I think Finn stands as another good example. His ability may one day be crazy good, but for now (and even I think even during SOR), it doesn't justify his high cost.

I don't know that FFG costed them incorrectly or not, but I do agree w/CBM above that a lot of the hero costs seem to be clunky/akward when trying to make good teams.

7 minutes ago, Zordren said:

Great discussion topic. I can't say I've done any "scientific analysis", but the above points seem to be valid and I've had similar experiences/impressions.

I think Finn stands as another good example. His ability may one day be crazy good, but for now (and even I think even during SOR), it doesn't justify his high cost.

I don't know that FFG costed them incorrectly or not, but I do agree w/CBM above that a lot of the hero costs seem to be clunky/akward when trying to make good teams.

Fun fact, Finn won my award for worst character in Awakenings.

His ability is priced at 3 points, but the problem with that is that you don't gain any inherent value by the ability to add red weapons and vehicles to your deck, because those weapons and vehicles are assumed to have been costed fairly for Villains. For example, when you include an FD Rifle in your deck and play it, it's nice to have the option, but it still used up a card slot and had a cost of 2 resources, so you gained zero advantage over your Villain counterpart.

The only way this could ever yield a worthwhile advantage was if the designers started intentionally designing Hero cards that would do insane combos with red, villain only vehicles or weapons as like...a backdoor treat to Finn.

Gooood times.

Edit: An elegant solution to this, which would still have retained the amazing flavor of the card, would have been to add a little more text to Finn: "The first time you play a Red Villain vehicle or weapon, you may reduce its cost by 2" . (Even a reduction of 1 would have been something . Then he'd only be a little over costed)

I mean, remember that time Finn defected and stole a TIE Fighter? I don't remember him paying for it. If he were straight up stealing Imperial equipment while defecting, he'd then represent the value he's costed at, while retaining the awesome flavor that the designers built in. Then you'd actually see this guy in competitive games.

Someone at FFG hire me!!

With this new set, I want to try making unlikely Hero characters viable with the new cards.

The biggest problem I see is that they are not focused on a particular win condition AKA: mill, or damage with the large amount of focus and shield sides. Mitigation just seems to be prolonging the inevitable, and healing is purposefully underpowered to keep the length of the game short. The new ways to cheat actions takes away from the value of 'Guardian' key word, and Vibroknife makes shields basically useless.

That being said, I just don't understand the purpose of hero characters because you cannot focus or shield someone to death except for Qui-Gon on occasions.

(I'm also not talking about yellow characters, as they are the only ones that seem to follow win condition trajectories with mill sides.)

The cost favors villains, and I don't understand why protection and focus carry so much weight. Maybe I'll be wrong in future tournaments but for now...

Villains FTW

I think Jyn is so good her ability if you build your deck well its like having another die that rolls resource and resolves it every turn for free. She is definately worth the 20 points.

CBMarkham, I love that concept of reducing cost of red villain upgrades/vehicles. Very thematic and would make him playable with his okay dice.

And we are all in agreement this game seems like it was designed by Grand Moff Tarkin and his undermining ways.

Sounds like I'm not the only one who's noticed this imbalance and hopefully The Last Jedi set can finally fix this cost problem now that the game is being played outside designer test space.

I'm thinking the limited character combo is the main reason for the imbalance and not as much the upgrades/events.

It sounds like half the characters aren't priced correctly according to whatever algorithm you use. Maybe it's the algorithm that is wrong? I wonder how different it would be if the stormtrooper was cost 8? That extra point allows him to squeeze into so many decks. I do agree Finn is underwhelming with only Awakenings but his value will only go up in future sets. I also would prefer him (and all characters for that matter) to be too expensive than too cheap. Too cheap and you have to play against them every game. If they are too expensive then the people that really want to use them can build a deck around them, it just won't be top-tier.

Villains have awkwardly pointed characters too, just not as many as the heroes, and heroes have tournament caliber builds, just not as many as villains do.

The disparity seems to be in the variety of choices presented to villain players opposed to the options hero players have.

2 hours ago, Ginganinja said:

It sounds like half the characters aren't priced correctly according to whatever algorithm you use. Maybe it's the algorithm that is wrong?

The credit belongs to Defense1236. While the formula is not always correct, it's the most correct one I've seen, and I never bothered to try and calculate one myself, though I may try now that we have twice as many data points to analyze, thanks to SoR. Link here:

Overall, even if it's not 100% accurate, I find it an incredibly valuable tool to gauge the efficiency of a character.

2 hours ago, Ginganinja said:

I do agree Finn is underwhelming with only Awakenings but his value will only go up in future sets.

Actually, I think his value will only go down, barring any insane combos, that would almost have to be intentional, as indicated in my above post. The reason that his value will go down (from its already very low starting point), is that as each color and faction gets more high quality tools of their own, the need to scavenge good cards out of other factions/colors will be reduced. In Awakenings, having an FD Rifle was amazing for Heroes, who had almost no redeploy equipment and very few guns overall. Now there are additional Hero options for red and yellow that devalue the FD Rifle (which is still quite good) reducing the Finn's value even further.

22 minutes ago, CBMarkham said:

The credit belongs to Defense1236. While the formula is not always correct, it's the most correct one I've seen, and I never bothered to try and calculate one myself, though I may try now that we have twice as many data points to analyze, thanks to SoR. Link here:

Overall, even if it's not 100% accurate, I find it an incredibly valuable tool to gauge the efficiency of a character.

A valuable tool is actually trying the character out in a variety of decks. In a game like this with 30 other cards in your deck and 1 or 2 more heros as well as a battlefield the value of a character cannot and should not be defined by an arbitrary algorithm. Looking at what people have defined as perceived value based off there own formula is a poison in X-wing and i hope not to see it anywhere else. The only time i want to hear if something is good or bad, or costed fairly is based of actual game play not someones formula.

19 minutes ago, CBMarkham said:

Actually, I think his value will only go down, barring any insane combos, that would almost have to be intentional, as indicated in my above post. The reason that his value will go down (from its already very low starting point), is that as each color and faction gets more high quality tools of their own, the need to scavenge good cards out of other factions/colors will be reduced. In Awakenings, having an FD Rifle was amazing for Heroes, who had almost no redeploy equipment and very few guns overall. Now there are additional Hero options for red and yellow that devalue the FD Rifle (which is still quite good) reducing the Finn's value even further.

While fin's value is questionable the addition of support vehicles will probably be the more deciding factor on his value in the future. there are cards like Poe that can take huge advantage good support cards. It only takes one good combo from a villain vehicle (or weapon) to bring fin up in value. Perhaps a 10cost AT-AT or something like that gets added with insane dice, having poe bring that in thanks to Fin will increase his value drastically regardless of what other things are available. So yes Fin's value has allot of room to move up given the right combo being added.

31 minutes ago, Icelom said:

A valuable tool is actually trying the character out in a variety of decks. In a game like this with 30 other cards in your deck and 1 or 2 more heros as well as a battlefield the value of a character cannot and should not be defined by an arbitrary algorithm. Looking at what people have defined as perceived value based off there own formula is a poison in X-wing and i hope not to see it anywhere else. The only time i want to hear if something is good or bad, or costed fairly is based of actual game play not someones formula.

Icelom, buddy, you're a good dude, and I like you, and I like your posts, and I want us to be buds. I want to get that out of the way first.

That said, I don't care that you think people shouldn't use math to try and find indicators of value. To me, that idea sounds insane. I hope you understand that I intend for this to be a respectful disagreement, and that I do not want to come across as a huge d-bag. Let me just explain where I'm coming from here:

What you said was that you only want to hear about actual game play, but there's no massive database which lists thousands upon thousands of games for us to draw information from, so what you're really saying is that the only good data comes from player's experiences and their entirely anecdotal evidence, which is crazy talk. Anecdotal evidence is worth next to nothing, because there are too many variables to be able to weed out any valuable information.

Also, let's assume that I don't have the time or inclination to play every permutation of every deck, with all character compositions and supporting cards to try and get a "feel" of what's working best. Let's say I want some more efficient method. Do you have a proposition that's better than math? I guarantee you that when FFG designers are working on these characters, they start with an algorithm and then adjust costs based on their internal play testing and other factors (such as interactions with other cards).

If you don't want to let my methodology for calculating character values influence you or the way you choose to play, I respect that and 100% support your decision. If you don't want to make judgements about Finn until you've played him 20 times, that's also 100% your business and I fully support you.

As for me? I'm a math guy. I math all day, every day. I try to determine the value that can be reaped from every single card, and when it comes to characters, that means having a baseline to evaluate against. I would say that this valuation methodology has worked very well for me. I'm experiencing a lot of success, all of which I attribute to using math and algorithms to determine the value of things, while my opponents are just going off their gut feelings.

If I seem way over the top, or rude, I sincerely apologize. I just get defensive when someone says that wanting to use math to enhance my competitive performance (which is how I choose to enjoy the game, thank you) is poison for the community....well, I don't appreciate that.

I encourage you to enjoy the game the way that suits you best, and completely ignore my ramblings whenever our thoughts on a subject (such as character valuation) do not align. When I talk about the things that I do to enjoy the game in a competitive landscape, I'm speaking for myself, and I'm speaking to any like minded people who may benefit from my analysis, or who would like to share their alternative viewpoints with me. Please do not feel that these posts are an attack on you or the way you enjoy the game, because they are not intended as such.

Also, formulas are your friend.

Good times.

I must admit, even at first glance Luminara just feels overcosted, her special really is no more than a +2 Melee damage that can only be used with another character die if your running her elite version (+3 only if your running the 1 die version which just seems bad), so essentially her die look like this:

1X

2X

2+X * (only with other character die)

Focus

Resource

Blank

With no passive ability (due to her really weak special) you really have to wonder how they came to her cost.

When you compare those dice stats to say a storm trooper or even Bala Tik then look at the cost disparity she is way overcosted.

Sure you can use her ability on non-combat related effects like mill or resource disruption but that feels pretty niche and again her cost means she should be the heavy hitter in the list not the sidekick.

I feel that both Luminara and Obi-wan are DOA which is a shame because, as others have said already, Heroes feel underpowered in terms of characters from Awakenings (Barring Han/Rey), and it only seems to perpetuate in SoR (except for Maz, she is really good)

1 hour ago, CBMarkham said:

Icelom, buddy, you're a good dude, and I like you, and I like your posts, and I want us to be buds. I want to get that out of the way first.

That said, I don't care that you think people shouldn't use math to try and find indicators of value. To me, that idea sounds insane. I hope you understand that I intend for this to be a respectful disagreement, and that I do not want to come across as a huge d-bag. Let me just explain where I'm coming from here:

What you said was that you only want to hear about actual game play, but there's no massive database which lists thousands upon thousands of games for us to draw information from, so what you're really saying is that the only good data comes from player's experiences and their entirely anecdotal evidence, which is crazy talk. Anecdotal evidence is worth next to nothing, because there are too many variables to be able to weed out any valuable information.

Also, let's assume that I don't have the time or inclination to play every permutation of every deck, with all character compositions and supporting cards to try and get a "feel" of what's working best. Let's say I want some more efficient method. Do you have a proposition that's better than math? I guarantee you that when FFG designers are working on these characters, they start with an algorithm and then adjust costs based on their internal play testing and other factors (such as interactions with other cards).

If you don't want to let my methodology for calculating character values influence you or the way you choose to play, I respect that and 100% support your decision. If you don't want to make judgements about Finn until you've played him 20 times, that's also 100% your business and I fully support you.

As for me? I'm a math guy. I math all day, every day. I try to determine the value that can be reaped from every single card, and when it comes to characters, that means having a baseline to evaluate against. I would say that this valuation methodology has worked very well for me. I'm experiencing a lot of success, all of which I attribute to using math and algorithms to determine the value of things, while my opponents are just going off their gut feelings.

If I seem way over the top, or rude, I sincerely apologize. I just get defensive when someone says that wanting to use math to enhance my competitive performance (which is how I choose to enjoy the game, thank you) is poison for the community....well, I don't appreciate that.

I encourage you to enjoy the game the way that suits you best, and completely ignore my ramblings whenever our thoughts on a subject (such as character valuation) do not align. When I talk about the things that I do to enjoy the game in a competitive landscape, I'm speaking for myself, and I'm speaking to any like minded people who may benefit from my analysis, or who would like to share their alternative viewpoints with me. Please do not feel that these posts are an attack on you or the way you enjoy the game, because they are not intended as such.

Also, formulas are your friend.

Good times.

No offense taken.. my opinions are formed from the x-wing forums where people spout ships are unplayable based on them being .5pts to overcoated without factoring in all outside forces, then I hear new players repeat how horrible and unplayable that ship is having never even tried it. Ships I have won tournaments with are called garbage based on the point value someone randomly decided was no good. It limits the meta and crushes new ideas and inovation as well as giving new players a poor view of actual balance.

I stopped posting there as it just got to pointless.

Use your numbers how you want but I am still going to be annoyed by them used to devalue cards and limit use of them based on my past experience. This has nothing to do with you using your numbers it has to do with what the group think does with them and how that effects the meta and what is played in general.

There is no substitute for actual play to evaluate the effectiveness of something.

At the end of the day however theses forums are a tiny microcosm of the player base and I probably shouldnt care.

I think people are undervaluing heroes a little, and underestimating some of their advantages. In particular, focus. Heroes have a lot of focus, and it's amazing. I think that changes up character values a bit, because (for example) Obi Wan's 3 damage side is probably inherently a lot more reliable than a 3 damage side in villains.

Character wise, Hero characters I'd consider 'properly costed' from Awakenings:

Ackbar (The Squid is amazing)

Hired Gun (cheap, good health, good damage, they are more held back by the current economy)

Luke (he's fine, even if he's really only got one decent partner due to his cost, but it's the guy with double Focus, which is exactly what Luke wants to make with the choppie chop)

Padawan (cheap, no bad die sides, great ability if she can get a Redeploy weapon)

Qui-Gonn (he doesn't seem like it, but I've played against him enough to know he works. He essentially has 4 damage sides)

Rebel Trooper (Okay, the die isn't the best, but Guardian is that **** good)

Rey (Yeah, we all know about Rey).

Then you've got several characters who IMO are slightly overcosted, but bring enough to the table that they can be worth it anyway - Poe, Han and Leia all fit here. And honestly, a lot of that comes down to them having pay sides for their damage. That leaves Finn, who's got quite a good die but could really do with another point of health, and Padme who's kind of tough to rate as she's not meant to be a conventional character

Looking at the officially spoiled SoR heroes- Snap and Maz are fine, they are support characters but there's nothing wrong with that. Chewie is going to be great. Obi-Wan is probably not worth it at 20, but I think he's fine at 16 if he can find the right partner (Tons of focus, Guardian to keep his partner alive if they ignore him and his ability if they don't, and the 3 damage will let him get get tooled up and clean up late game). Luminara I do think is overcosted, but I think that may be valuing the potential focus options. Jyn I'm not 100% sure on - I do think she's overcosted (specifically compared to eLuke), but I may be undervaluing her ability. And I'm still sure there will be Never Tell Me The Odds decks built around her.

So, how does all that compare to villains? I'd say....about the same, in terms of character costs. There's only really one or two villain characters who I'd say are overcosted, and there's a few that are perhaps undercosted. I don't think it's this huge bias against Heroes.

Having said that, I do think there's a big difference in the design of heroes characters versus villains - namely, there's currently far more centerpiece, 'build around me' heroes characters in Awakenings compared to villains. Villains basically got Vader, and arguably Phasma. Heroes got Luke, Qui-Gonn, Poe and Han (heck, even Hired Guns could arguably fit in there). Meanwhile, villains got more of the generic filler and efficiency characters. Those kind of characters are always going to fit a little better, but aren't neccasarily going to be the stronger choice.

3 minutes ago, Abyss said:

Character wise, Hero characters I'd consider 'properly costed' from Awakenings:

Ackbar (The Squid is amazing)

Hired Gun (cheap, good health, good damage, they are more held back by the current economy)

Luke (he's fine, even if he's really only got one decent partner due to his cost, but it's the guy with double Focus, which is exactly what Luke wants to make with the choppie chop)

Padawan (cheap, no bad die sides, great ability if she can get a Redeploy weapon)

Qui-Gonn (he doesn't seem like it, but I've played against him enough to know he works. He essentially has 4 damage sides)

Rebel Trooper (Okay, the die isn't the best, but Guardian is that **** good)

Rey (Yeah, we all know about Rey).

I mostly agree with you. Also...Poe may (?) be fine since his value is so contingent on what's in your hand so like...it's hard to tell for him.

This is mostly the reason for my madman rant above; I think the generics are all very solid, but they refuse to put out anything that could pair well with these generics aside from focus dealing, support characters. That's not terrible at all, but how about some variety? I don't need 4 characters with heavy focus and only Rey with damage sides. I found this to be especially maddening when I saw the character who they specifically designed with an ability that supports generic characters.

I'll just leave this here unless it gets erased somehow:

SoR Event cost (0)

Play only if you have one or more dice depicting focus (t). resolve one of your dice as if Represented another symbol (it retains Its original value).

8 minutes ago, Icelom said:

No offense taken.. my opinions are formed from the x-wing forums where people spout ships are unplayable based on them being .5pts to overcoated without factoring in all outside forces, then I hear new players repeat how horrible and unplayable that ship is having never even tried it. Ships I have won tournaments with are called garbage based on the point value someone randomly decided was no good. It limits the meta and crushes new ideas and inovation as well as giving new players a poor view of actual balance.

Appreciate you. Appreciate your well thought out response, and your working with me to have reasonable discourse. Most of the time on the internet, this would have already devolved into someone yelling at me that I'm a drooling simpleton because I don't view things the same way as them.

That said, in your above post, how do you know which is the chicken and which is the egg?

You said that the meta is impacted by people having a negative opinion of a ship, because the negative opinion is echoed, and thus people do not play ships that you feel are worthwhile. How do you know that people are saying negative things for baseless reasons, without having played the ships? How do you know that the performance of the ships didn't inform the opinions, the meta silently fell in line with experience of the players, and THEN people would talk about the reasons they didn't like a ship? Is it wrong to share a collective evaluation, if the evaluation is negative?

Furthermore, just because you've had success with a ship in X-Wing does not necessarily make it a "good ship". For example, I consider the K-Fighter to be very sub par, by most metrics. It's entirely possible that you've had lots of success with K-Fighters, because you're an extra badass. To me, that would be indicative of an above average skill level on your part, a below average skill level on the part of your opponents, or some combination, perhaps.

I would never, ever try to stop you from playing, and loving, and enjoying a K-Fighter if it's what you wanted to do. I'm 100% for it. In fact, you get bonus respect from me at the table; but it probably doesn't stop me from blowing your list away (unless you're just THAT much better than me). I appreciate that you want to play what you want to play, and double respect if your skill level is high enough that you can achieve success while including elements that I would not consider mathematically ideal, but that doesn't make the mathematical analysis invalid. Personally, I'm often frustrated with the X-Wing forums because there's a contingent of players who don't allow you to express ANY negative analysis (or as I would call it, accurate, critical analysis) without insisting that you should just "do better", "get good", and "play for FUN!".

I just ....I'm repeating myself now. My point was that I enjoy analysis, and I enjoy being very competitive. Math is good for that. If other people want different things, that's cool, but don't deny me the right to evaluate. Anyway....much respect, much love.

1 hour ago, CBMarkham said:

I mostly agree with you. Also...Poe may (?) be fine since his value is so contingent on what's in your hand so like...it's hard to tell for him.

This is mostly the reason for my madman rant above; I think the generics are all very solid, but they refuse to put out anything that could pair well with these generics aside from focus dealing, support characters. That's not terrible at all, but how about some variety? I don't need 4 characters with heavy focus and only Rey with damage sides. I found this to be especially maddening when I saw the character who they specifically designed with an ability that supports generic characters.

Poe's a hard one to rate - he's capable of absolutely explosive damage, but the rest of his dice is so so. I'd say they hedged their bets on the potential when costing him.

For me, one of the main areas where costs seem a bit wonky is where characters do/don't get pay damage sides. Right now is seems the elite curve is 2/3 damage with a pay side around 18 points, and then 20 plus gets it for free. With the current economy, I think the pay side feels quite weak there, and all of the 18 point elites feel a slightly overcosted (Grievous definitely has the same issue). Honestly, pretty much every unique character with a pay for damage side feels just a little bit overcosted, though that could change very easily with slightly more economy in the game. Or slightly higher power in other areas to compensate, which is what we've got with Chewie.

I agree that the Heroes currently have a lot of cheap support characters, and not much in the way of cheap fighters. Although to a degree, support characters can play the role of fighters with upgrades, and that usually isn't true in reverse. But in particular, I think Heroes would really like a couple of cheap characters with some ranged sides, to open up some options for characters like

This is some great viewpoints, and really happy with seeing everyone's insights.

Personally, I think that unless you have an action cheat, 1 focus sides are a bit overvalued. As you can just wait for them to focus a die, then mitigate that next die they focused. You now removed 2 dice instead of 1, and you can usually predict what side someone is going to flip to, so you are prepared with your countermoves.

Ultimately the point system doesn't really care about valuing certain dice sides or abilities, but just restricting who they can work with. Such as we now can't see a 7 cost Hero or see another 11 or 12 cost unique Villain outside of Bala-Tik, as doing so will create 5 character dice combos and limit the meta to 5 dice combos and only a select few non-5 dice combos. It just seems that it would be a big plus for Destiny to have more viable deck options.

Finn is overcosted, but this may be due to preventing ePoe pairing with him, which could get insane as set expands, though poor Finn gets tossed to the gutter because of it. Having used Poe/Rey more than any other deck, I wouldn't price Poe any lower than he is, as he's extremely dangerous with the right deck build, and he has 3 damage side, with one being a wildcard that puts your opponent on tilt/reaction mode.

3 hours ago, Mace Windu said:

I must admit, even at first glance Luminara just feels overcosted, her special really is no more than a +2 Melee damage that can only be used with another character die if your running her elite version (+3 only if your running the 1 die version which just seems bad), so essentially her die look like this:

1X

2X

2+X * (only with other character die)

Focus

Resource

Blank

With no passive ability (due to her really weak special) you really have to wonder how they came to her cost.

When you compare those dice stats to say a storm trooper or even Bala Tik then look at the cost disparity she is way overcosted.

Sure you can use her ability on non-combat related effects like mill or resource disruption but that feels pretty niche and again her cost means she should be the heavy hitter in the list not the sidekick.

I feel that both Luminara and Obi-wan are DOA which is a shame because, as others have said already, Heroes feel underpowered in terms of characters from Awakenings (Barring Han/Rey), and it only seems to perpetuate in SoR (except for Maz, she is really good)

You know, Luminara sound nice with the damage, but I think where she'll really shine is with the non combat effects.

With a Padawan, she can turn its focus into a focus 4, that's huge with 'All-In'. She can turn a ressource into ressource 4, that's 'One with the Force' or 'Mind Probe' right there.

Is there a non-unique coming with a Discard side? Because that will be nasty.

I guess the main problem I see is that her point cost means that if you don’t run her with Rey you can't have 4 starting dice, which is a big issue as the only viable 3 dice decks are Vader/Raider and Poe/Gun/Gun really. If she were 1 point cheaper you could possibly run her in an E-Luminara E-Padme Deck for milling but sadly you can't.

The other thing is that if you do only run a single die version of her, when all her sidekicks are gone her special actually becomes a blank. That’s actually pretty bad really.

At the end of the day Luminara is a sidekick support character that is costed as your main heavy hitter character. At 17 for her elite cost, were they to print a 7 cost rebel unit you STILL wouldn’t be able to run an elite Luminara with 2 x 7 point generics. If they ever print an elite costed unit for 13 points like a Hero version of FN-2199 then she might actually see some play but till then I think she's to awkwardly costed to see any play with the current characters available.

1 hour ago, Mace Windu said:

At the end of the day Luminara is a sidekick support character that is costed as your main heavy hitter character.

I think this is a great point, and indicative of a trend amongst the hero characters in SoR. Obi-Wan Kenobi is also priced like your main character, even though his ability suggests he is more of a supporting character, seeing as you are, in part, including him with the expectation that he will not survive to see the end of the game.

The weird feel of the point allocation of characters in both factions makes me think there might be a future game-mode where you have up to forty points of characters. Kind of an 'epic' for Destiny. It would explain in part why ePalp is 28 points instead of just 30.

1 hour ago, Mace Windu said:

I guess the main problem I see is that her point cost means that if you don’t run her with Rey you can't have 4 starting dice

In the new set you can run her with eMaz or eSnap for Blue/Yellow or Blue/Red with four starting dice. I think there might be something in a control-focused eLuminara/eSnap deck, but I think we need to see more cards from SoR to be sure.

15 minutes ago, Ajones47 said:

In the new set you can run her with eMaz or eSnap for Blue/Yellow or Blue/Red with four starting dice. I think there might be something in a control-focused eLuminara/eSnap deck, but I think we need to see more cards from SoR to be sure.

Technically true, yes you can run E-Luminara with E-Maz or E-Snap, but those are both true support characters that are appropriately costed, but also ranged damage output (what little damage they do) as well, so realistically I wasn’t considering those pairings as they are pretty awful pairings for Luminara. You could try milling with Snap but that’s pretty fragile especially when neither have shields on their dice and your starting at a total of 18 health.