X-Wing's First Ban?

By Darth Meanie, in X-Wing

2 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

It's not surprising Paratanni still works. That list was BROKEN good - results 10-15% better than any other squad that has ever existed in the game.

A nerf only knocks it down into Tier I, when previously it sat above Tier I.

I am sort of a **** for coming back to play the game and playing it right out of the gate. But it's also very cheap to acquire. 1 jumpmaster, 1 lancer and one contracted scout is around 85€, just ask for a friend for autothrusters + 1x mindlink and you are set to go with a competitive list, otherwise it would be around 135, but you would have a second scout to change lists, even tho you will have a starviper taking some dust. I can't be more thankful that it still works.

6 minutes ago, Stevey86 said:

So "pilot skill" is not about a pilot's skill?

Ok. lol

No, any more than the Check Pilot Stress step is about checking whether your pilot is stressed. It's a name for a game mechanic.

It's a thing that defines the order of movement and shooting. No more, no less.

And besides, one can be elite and have a rare or unique talent without necessarily being quick off the mark.

I have, as noted, no issue with low PS EPT slots. I have an issue with poorly designed undercosted ships.

1 minute ago, DreadStar said:

I am sort of a **** for coming back to play the game and playing it right out of the gate. But it's also very cheap to acquire. 1 jumpmaster, 1 lancer and one contracted scout is around 85€, just ask for a friend for autothrusters + 1x mindlink and you are set to go with a competitive list, otherwise it would be around 135, but you would have a second scout to change lists, even tho you will have a starviper taking some dust. I can't be more thankful that it still works.

And it's enjoyable and fun to fly as well. I'm glad the list is still very good because it's a fun list that plays good games of X-Wing, but I'm also very glad it's been taken down a notch or two.

6 hours ago, spacelion said:

I dont think JM5k is the problem, the bigger problem is the Mindlink being more than a 2-of.

Either you do an unwieldy errata where you make the Mindlink unique and declare a 2nd ship to Mindlink to (condition style) , or you remove the focus/stress limit so allowing you to stack multiple stress on the whole list.

So Mindlink puts stress on up to what limit? If you don't set a number than they would all get infinite stress.

2 minutes ago, arkhamssaber said:

So Mindlink puts stress on up to what limit? If you don't set a number than they would all get infinite stress.

"When any ship with this upgrade is assigned a stress token, all other ships with this upgrade are assigned stress tokens until they have the same number of stress tokens."

On 3/31/2017 at 6:15 PM, Darth Meanie said:

So, how about it? The JumpMaster has had 3 nerfs and still is at the top of the list (see other thread).

Is it about time the FFG just admits that this ship is WAAAAAAYYYYY out of line with everything else, and instead of ruining other cards (Deadeye, Astromech) just gets this ship out of the sandbox?

Technically speaking jumps were nerfed not 3, but 5 times:

- R4 Agromech nerf - deadeye combo nerfed
- Large ships giving half MOV - indirect jumps nerf
- zuckus nerf - indirect dengaroo nerf
- Deadeye nerf hitting triple jumps
- Manaroo range nerf

Btw, its on the "top of the list" which is based on selective data so only proove... well no one know what it really is prooving, not even the author of the chart.

I don't think I would use the word 'prove' about anything.

I think it tells us that the basic Jumpmaster chassis has been strong enough to compete on the top tables in multiple configurations across multiple metagames despite repeated attempts to reduce their influence by nerfing upgrades used by them.

I don't think you need a chart to tell you that, though.

7 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

If you've missed it, the CS are coming back. Triple Attani-Mindlinked torpedo scouts are right up among the new hotness.

I didn't miss anything. I've been flying mindlinked uboats myself, and it's good, but not nearly as broken and metawarping as the deadeye version was.

On 4/3/2017 at 9:35 AM, Voitek said:

Technically speaking jumps were nerfed not 3, but 5 times:

- R4 Agromech nerf - deadeye combo nerfed
- Large ships giving half MOV - indirect jumps nerf
- zuckus nerf - indirect dengaroo nerf
- Deadeye nerf hitting triple jumps
- Manaroo range nerf

Btw, its on the "top of the list" which is based on selective data so only proove... well no one know what it really is prooving, not even the author of the chart.

The large ship nerf for 1/2 MOV happened months before the Jumpmasters were out. Not much of a nerf.

On Friday, March 31, 2017 at 1:43 PM, Darth Meanie said:

If there is a stone in your shoe, take it out. Don't add 3 socks and a bandage.

Absolutely well said. I'm a little new to this game, but when it comes to tabletop gaming in general this isn't exactly my first rodeo. After taking the time to YouTube some of the final matches in the World Championship it's very clear that the JM5K poses a serious issue.

I've absolutely fallen in love with this game, and I'd hate to see it start having the type of issues that I've seen in so many other tabletop games before it. Heroclix would be a good example. I remember when they came out with the entities, and it really got to a point where if you could not afford those pieces there really wasn't much of a point in playing. That was about the time I cashed out.

So, in closing, I really have to agree with my fellow Sith Lord. Better to hack off a gangrenous limb then to let the body die. Here's hoping this game is around for a while.

"The dark side is strong in me, for I am Sith."

Edited by Darth Nadir

"Dew it."

I know i am repeating myself but i wish FFG would just unnerf all the cards and start adjusting points.

And while they are at it they could release a list building app.

On 3/31/2017 at 1:23 PM, Torg said:

completely banning a ship or an upgrade card - nerf it to **** to the point it's so weak it might not be worth taking but out right ban it no.

If FFG did start banning ship's and upgrade cards then it's time for a new Version of the game or stop making it.

Edited April 1 by Torg

the jumps been out 2 years. its had its day. just say you cant play it without the title and make the title 15 points. then its fair, still brutal with dengar or tel tevura, and people who like it will still play it. it simply wouldn't be a spamable auto-include for scum. When the reveal article for the Jumpmaster showed the pilots, my brother and I immediately started laughing about how broken it was and figured it was a misprint or working images of the pilots because there was no friggin way you got a falcon with better upgrades and dial for 10 points cheaper... but we were wrong. just put the broken toilet seat where it belongs, in the trash

7 minutes ago, Reaver027 said:

I know i am repeating myself but i wish FFG would just unnerf all the cards and start adjusting points.

The idea of simply un-nerfing the nerfs --in the face of the apparent resistance of issuing the complete "bringing balance" FAQ 4.3.2-- isn't a ludicrous idea actually. Though it will keep current unused ships and pilots unused, the current crazy ordinance meta finds the pre-nerf Whisper just a real good Imperial option, she's not OP broken if you drop her in today's tournaments, but she might get Imps to some top tables. Defender X7s with Palp too are not OP when you set them against the current OP hotness; they're simply not OP in this bomb-missile-wing meta. Which, now that I really think of the un-nerfing, is actually corrective, but a bad idea, though it works. Come on FFG, get the d*** OP Rebel and Scum s*** pulled back to your designed Empirical Balance already.

On 2017-03-31 at 1:33 PM, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

FFG opts to fix via rules adjustment, which just seems really wrong-headed to me. Everything costs points. Being OP in this environment most often means when you take Ship-X you get a f**load more bang for your pts that taking Ship-Y. Adjust the pts to even that out. Making new rules often has ripples outside of Ship-X's OP status.

Will some folks have to adjust their tourney lists because the points no longer work out -Yes! Why is that such a horrible outcome? They adjust their lists based on other kinds of nerfs anyway.

Banning a MTG card makes sense, a ship, not so much.

Problem is you would need to raise the ship cost by a lot to balance it. Take Dengar Nym for example. Remove the 2 torps from Dengar (raise cost of ship by 5 pts) and you still have a nasty build.

The Jumpmaster is a ship that shows all of the game’s flaws in one platform:

PS-creep: high Pilot Skill is meant to be sacred, and reserved for iconic pilots like Han Solo, Wedge Antilles, Poe Dameron, and Darth Vader. Even Boba Fett doesn’t get one. So why does “diaper-head guy in background for a couple seconds” get PS9? Yes I know he’s big in the EU, but so is Hera Syndulla, who was appropriately placed at PS7. Dengar (and other like Nym, Fenn Rau) should be PS7, just to show that PS9 doesn’t just mean “good pilot”, it means “iconic pilot from the movies who changed the course of Star Wars history”.

Turrets at no extra cost: turrets aren’t a huge problem. The Millenium Falcon shows that they exist in the very core of Star Wars. However, early turrets came with high cost (Falcon) and/or upgrade limitations (lack of EPT on Rebel Y-Wings), neither of which the Jumpmaster has.

EPTs for everyone!: the problem with this is not just Attani Mindlink, it’s also the fact that EPTs are usually very good value for cost, and they’re meant to be a reason to take mid-PS aces like Backstabber and Jek Porkins, as cheaper EPT carriers than the top aces. But who’s gonna take those pilots when generics are cheaper and now always come with EPTs too?

Confusing pilot abilities: I know this is one of those things that most folks would just say “walk it off” about, but a number of people have stopped coming to my FLGS because they’re sick of shenanigans like Manaroo, Tel Trevura, and especially Dengar’s pilot abilities. These make it hard to enjoy the game because if you’re someone who hasn’t played lately, you just sit there saying “wait, I shot you! Why are you now doing all this stuff that’s better than my attack?”

Too many upgrades: Maxed-out upgrade bars cause problems. TIE Bombers and Punishers are fine, because their upgrades are mostly all the same stuff. Jumps on the other hand, like K-Wings and Scurrgs, have so many options that they can get some crazy combos going. These combos similarly invoke a “WTF?!?” reaction from older players (like described above).

So banning the Jump might get rid of the ship that has all of these NPEs, but it won’t remove the NPEs themselves from the game. These problems have been slowly building since Wave IV, and I don’t think it’s going to get better anytime soon. So we’ll probably be dealing with the Jump for a long time. And Jump will continue to be Van Halen’s only #1 hit single. Go figure.

(FYI, I agree with you almost entirely, but Backstabber doesn't have an EPT slot. Nor does, e.g., Dark Curse.)

I'll repeat myself again and again, but X-Wing has a very compressed power gap. So far, no ship can win on stats alone.

Fat Han came probably the closest, as it was consistent and mostly maneuvre-independent. So I'd say FFG has a couple of cute tricks left to pull, and then, when time and nerfs again fail to consistently get the JM5K down that tad that makes it so deadly in the most experienced hands, then they could (and should) issue a big apology, send the ship into reprint and remove, for example, the BR or even change the dial. As long as they make absolutely clear that they are not opening the floodgates, but putting a ship back into the design space it should have been in in the first place.

If that happens, FFG is usually a good sport about rules, they might put all of this out as a PDF, we just print it out, glue it onto something sturdy and we're set. That would be the worst case scenario I find to be worth considering. There is no real reason to ban a ship for anything other than scenario play.

Edited by DampfGecko
58 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

(FYI, I agree with you almost entirely, but Backstabber doesn't have an EPT slot. Nor does, e.g., Dark Curse.)

Dang! Backstabber’s further behind the power curve than I remember... I had put Turr Phennir there, but then I remembered some people seem to like him, and I kinda panicked and picked a mid-PS pilot that I was pretty sure had an EPT. Should have picked Scourge, Tetran Cowell, Zertik Strom, or Maarek Stele. And now I’m inexplicably too lazy to go back and replace Backstabber in the original post...

They just need to release a new core set and announce that all point costs printed on cards are invalid and there won’t be Point costs on future cards. Then release an official squad building app where the points are fluid where FFG can alter them and players must print their squad sheets before tournaments or submit a URL through the app to the TO.

22 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

They just need to release a new core set and announce that all point costs printed on cards are invalid and there won’t be Point costs on future cards. Then release an official squad building app where the points are fluid where FFG can alter them and players must print their squad sheets before tournaments or submit a URL through the app to the TO.

Weirdly, I'm not sure whether you're serious or not (for some people, this is an oddly sensitive topic), but ... I agree. (Technically, I think this what 2.0 should do, but pretty much the same thing.)

8 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Weirdly, I'm not sure whether you're serious or not (for some people, this is an oddly sensitive topic), but ... I agree. (Technically, I think this what 2.0 should do, but pretty much the same thing.)

It’s serious, it has to be a more refined idea. But the ability to do such a thing is a lot easier than some of these 2.0 ideas.

And not really practical in the real world.

26 minutes ago, Sithborg said:

And not really practical in the real world.

Why not?

1 hour ago, Sithborg said:

And not really practical in the real world.

They are already implementing a fluid online rule book with Legion and many other companies have what I stated above. So I really want to know why it’s not practical in the real world?