It's actually not a subtle nerf at all. By stressing a single ship (and thus the entire list) you shut down AM for at least 1 ship for a full turn.

For example: stress bot hits one of my 3 AM ships. All 3 get stress. Going into the next turn, AM is basically shut down.

Ship 1 does a green, takes focus. Whoops, AM is useless because the other ships haven't cleared their stress.

Ship 2 does a green, takes focus, whoops, ship 1 already has a focus, so it doesn't get anything.

Ship 3 does a green, takes focus (because it still doesn't have one) and AM does jack.

obviously there's another option:

Ship 1 does a green, does some non-focus action.

Ship 2 does a green, does some non-focus action.

Ship 3 does a green, focuses and passes.

But you have just basically defeated the point of AM by forcing every single ship to do a green AND forcing the final ship to take the Focus action, all for what would have been a single point of stress had it not been for AM.

It's absolutely an excessive nerf, all to deal with a focus token through AM. And that's just assuming a single stress. Most stressbots are built to pass more than 1 stress, or if you set it up right, double stress one ship and single stress the other ships.

5 minutes ago, streamdragon said:

It's actually not a subtle nerf at all. By stressing a single ship (and thus the entire list) you shut down AM for at least 1 ship for a full turn.

For example: stress bot hits one of my 3 AM ships. All 3 get stress. Going into the next turn, AM is basically shut down.

Ship 1 does a green, takes focus. Whoops, AM is useless because the other ships haven't cleared their stress.

Ship 2 does a green, takes focus, whoops, ship 1 already has a focus, so it doesn't get anything.

Ship 3 does a green, takes focus (because it still doesn't have one) and AM does jack.

obviously there's another option:

Ship 1 does a green, does some non-focus action.

Ship 2 does a green, does some non-focus action.

Ship 3 does a green, focuses and passes.

But you have just basically defeated the point of AM by forcing every single ship to do a green AND forcing the final ship to take the Focus action, all for what would have been a single point of stress had it not been for AM.

It's absolutely an excessive nerf, all to deal with a focus token through AM. And that's just assuming a single stress. Most stressbots are built to pass more than 1 stress, or if you set it up right, double stress one ship and single stress the other ships.

Yeah you literally just picked the most stupid thing you could do (focus with three different ships).

Manaroo would already be doing a green almost certainly in order to focus, now she just TL/barrels. Asajj has a wealth of greens to choose from so would usually be doing a green anyway, and takes a TL that she was probably going to take if Manaroo had focused for her. The Fenn does a green, which he was going to have to do, and THEN it takes effect because he can't boost away or TL to attack he has to focus.

9 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

The bottom line is that yes, Mindlink needs a (small) nerf and it should only share tokens to unstressed ships.

This sounds like a huge change but is actually quite a subtle nerf. Take Paratanni, for example... Manaroo and Asajj weren't doing red moves anyway so they're not a problem, and by the time Fenn thinks about maybe doing a T-Roll he's already got focus. The in situations where you got stressed in combat or something it just means that Fenn has to be the Focus junky for your team after Manaroo and Asajj do their greens to destress.

So it doesn't annihilate Mindlink at all, but it means that after they become stressed there's a weakpoint to exploit (you know Fenn is the focus monkey).

On the contrary, it completely kills mindlink in many other contexts - mindlink swarms really want to have a ship K turn or t-roll, then the remaining ships do greens and focus to give the k turning ship mods. If that sequence is broken it becomes a LOT more difficult to fly them. Probably prohibitively difficult.

I've flown a 4-ship PS5 mindlink swarm for a while, I know how they work, and that change would absolutely annihilate their effectiveness whilst not making an awful lot of difference to Parattani. I'd also question your assertion that focussing three times is a stupid idea - focus stacking is how Fenn in particular doesn't die, even if you manage to catch him out at range 2.

I'd agree that Mindlink probably wants a minor nerf, but that's absolutely not a minor nerf, it's a complete sea change to how the card functions.

My personal proposal would be to limit Mindlinked ships to only ever have one focus token. Preventing focus stacking would corral a lot of the more egregious toughness of Mindlink whilst forcing the players to pick other actions thus making it a bit more of an interesting card to face. But this would also need to be accompanied by a significant nerf to Manaroo and the Scout for it to have a useful effect.

It was done to demonstrate the usual order for Focus actions: that being the low PS generic passing Focus to the higher PS ace who needs their actions for repositioning or TL. Your "solution" would destroy AM's ability to be used on ships without a swath of green on their dial, since if they want to get any benefit from AM they would have to clear their stress and maintain their clear stress. It would kill any ship's ability to perform early red maneuvers, since once you do you shut down AM completely. My favorite AM list to play was a Bossk /Kath list. Your "fix" would essentially kill that already underwhelming list. it's a bad fix, plain and simple.

edit: this post @Stay On Target , naturally.

An interesting idea for the AM would be that if one of the mindlinked ships bumps or clips an asteroid, all later activated mindlinked ships loose their action. I think that would make for some fun counter strategies and targeting selections.

33 minutes ago, Ram said:

An interesting idea for the AM would be that if one of the mindlinked ships bumps or clips an asteroid, all later activated mindlinked ships loose their action. I think that would make for some fun counter strategies and targeting selections.

This would also kill a lot of the interesting play with Mindlink swarms. Castling has been a key tactic with my four-ship mindlink list - not an opening castle, but castling in a furball. Blocking your own ships in order to later supply them actions with others.

It's already a very tough list to play right, adding these kinds of restrictions wouldn't make it impossible in theory, but in practice, over the course of even one match, it would make it so much harder to avoid mistakes as to make it functionally impossible to play.

29 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

This would also kill a lot of the interesting play with Mindlink swarms. Castling has been a key tactic with my four-ship mindlink list - not an opening castle, but castling in a furball. Blocking your own ships in order to later supply them actions with others.

It's already a very tough list to play right, adding these kinds of restrictions wouldn't make it impossible in theory, but in practice, over the course of even one match, it would make it so much harder to avoid mistakes as to make it functionally impossible to play.

I see prevention of castling as a feature, not a bug.

All and all, I think we are already at an "agree to disagree" point. I do not think most mindlink lists are that hard to play. If you have protectorates they are fragile and if you play Kaa'To he requires careful flying, but all and all the action economy of the mindlink lists makes them easier to fly then most other lists. They are quite forgiving as mistakes with one ship does not leave you without focus as is the case for most other ships, now even the x7 defender after the errata. The ships in general AM lists are very capable as is and the mindlink makes them even more so. The change I suggest would weaken the mindlink for sure, but that is pretty much the point. It is a meta defining card. It would still be very playable, but it would require a different approach when playing it and give opposing builds a new weapon against it, not requiring to go the imho pretty boring approach of stress induction.

Precisely this, Mindlink is a built-in safety net against ******* up.

11 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Precisely this, Mindlink is a built-in safety net against ******* up.

That kind of insurance is cheap for 1 point per ship.

2 minutes ago, Ram said:

I see prevention of castling as a feature, not a bug.

All and all, I think we are already at an "agree to disagree" point. I do not think most mindlink lists are that hard to play. If you have protectorates they are fragile and if you play Kaa'To he requires careful flying, but all and all the action economy of the mindlink lists makes them easier to fly then most other lists. They are quite forgiving as mistakes with one ship does not leave you without focus as is the case for most other ships, now even the x7 defender after the errata. The ships in general AM lists are very capable as is and the mindlink makes them even more so. The change I suggest would weaken the mindlink for sure, but that is pretty much the point. It is a meta defining card. It would still be very playable, but it would require a different approach when playing it.

By weakening it in this way you weaken it a lot more for the lists it brings close to viability, than for the lists it already makes viable.

For the record, the list I'm talking about is 2 Ion Scyks and 2 PS5 Fangs. It's a neat, fun list, which is only brought even close to viability by Mindlink - otherwise, it can't get double mods (focus/evade for the Sycks and focus/TL for the Fangs) and its attacks are lame enough that it just doesn't work. Even dropping it down to Crack Shot would kills its utility.

The mechanics it thrives on are intentional self-bumping to keep arc and to keep from bumping into lower-PS ships it's ioned and blocked, and k turns/t-rolls followed up by green moves for all the other ships, to keep guns on target and keep its options firmly open for following rounds. If you make stress shut it down, you can no longer functionally do the k turn tricks, because one ship K turning kills everyone's EPT for a round or more, and if you do the bumps turn it off thing, you can no longer castle effectively.

Take those mechanics out and you kill it entirely and a lot of similar lists I've not really explored.

But you don't really do much at all to mindlinked triple scouts, which don't rely on K turning anywhere near as much and don't rely on castling anywhere near as much. You do a little more to Parattani, perhaps.

Scum have a wealth of underused mid-PS EPT ships which are just waiting to be used in lists like this - Sarco, Kaato, Gand Findsmen, Guri, Palob, Black Sun Aces, Concord Dawn Aces and Vets, Tansaari Point vets - not to mention 3 new EPT Scyk pilots in the C-ROC at least one of whom seems to be designed with Mindlink use in mind (Genesis Red) - N'Dru, Kad, etc etc etc.

But their use of Mindlink is being suppressed by the fact that underpriced ships can use it better.

Don't 'fix' it by making it prohibitive to use on those underpriced ships (and thus killing its use by anyone who's NOT underpriced entirely), fix it by making those ships properly costed in the first place.

And maybe adding a prohibition against Mindlinked ships having more than one focus token.

The answer you need to ask yourself is:

IS THE MINDLINK MAKING AT LEAST ONE PARTICULAR LIST OVERPOWERED, AND NERFING MINDLINK WOULD MAKE THIS LIST NON-OP?

If the answer to this question is "No", then it is not the mindlink you should blame.

So, what's the answer to this question?

In my humple opinion answer to this question is "NO". Is parattani a meta-dominant list now after manaroo has been nerfed? No, not really. Fenn/Zuck/Teroch? 4*Tansarii Scyks? I dont think so.

So Jumps maybe? They are the closest the scums have at the moment to "meta-defining list". So lets assume you would remove mindlink from the equation and scum players would have to spent this slot/points on something different. 3*Crack shot - yes please! Adaptability/Trick shots/Score to settle, and saved points invested in K4 security droids? Hell, even 3* Veteran instinct would give a huge benefit here (with initiative bid countess ryad coud be screwed badly).

Hence, my point stays the same

- mindlink isn't an irreplaceable (is there a word like that in English?) element of a single OP build, hence it should not be nerfed. you could as well be nerfing Tie Bombers because of this crazy 2*Tie/D+Tie bomber build that went 1000-0 in 5 games on Lothal Open.

Just now, Voitek said:

irreplaceable

Is very much a word and used perfectly in context =)

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

Is very much a word and used perfectly in context =)

Thanks, wasn't sure if that's an actual thing or just me going on a wild neologism-spree

To put it another way, for those proposing Mindlink nerfs: which lists concern you? What are the squads in which you feel Mindlink is overpowering?

7 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Scum have a wealth of underused mid-PS EPT ships which are just waiting to be used in lists like this - Sarco, Kaato, Gand Findsmen, Guri, Palob, Black Sun Aces, Concord Dawn Aces and Vets, Tansaari Point vets - not to mention 3 new EPT Scyk pilots in the C-ROC at least one of whom seems to be designed with Mindlink use in mind (Genesis Red) - N'Dru, Kad, etc etc etc.

But their use of Mindlink is being suppressed by the fact that underpriced ships can use it better.

Don't 'fix' it by making it prohibitive to use on those underpriced ships (and thus killing its use by anyone who's NOT underpriced entirely), fix it by making those ships properly costed in the first place.

And maybe adding a prohibition against Mindlinked ships having more than one focus token.

Good points. But what ships are undercosted? The contracted scout is pretty much the only one I feel is genuinely undercosted tbh.

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

To put it another way, for those proposing Mindlink nerfs: which lists concern you? What are the squads in which you feel Mindlink is overpowering?

The problem with the Mindlink if any is that it more or less is in every scum list. It is such a good card that it boosts every list. That by itself states that it is an exceptional card. It is a card that allows every ship to do a Squad leader on all your other ships and itself. Not entirely true, bot close enough. This is like Palpatine all over. Earlier close to all imp lists ended with "and a Palp shuttle" and now all scum ships contains "with Mindlink". To me, this does not feel healthy. Dont get me wrong, I really like the card but perhaps its just a little too good, a little to hard to take away the advantage it provides. Give the card a disadvantage that takes skill to exploit, like bumping, and I feel it will be just right.

1 minute ago, Ram said:

The problem with the Mindlink if any is that it more or less is in every scum list. It is such a good card that it boosts every list. That by itself states that it is an exceptional card. It is a card that allows every ship to do a Squad leader on all your other ships and itself. Not entirely true, bot close enough. This is like Palpatine all over. Earlier close to all imp lists ended with "and a Palp shuttle" and now all scum ships contains "with Mindlink". To me, this does not feel healthy. Dont get me wrong, I really like the card but perhaps its just a little too good, a little to hard to take away the advantage it provides. Give the card a disadvantage that takes skill to exploit, like bumping, and I feel it will be just right.

Going this way, you should also nerf Stress-droid (since it is the only single droid seen on Ywings), Miranda doni (since she is the dominating K-wing pilot), Biggs starlighter (since he is literally the only X-wing pilot ever in use), and ban Defenders as well (since they are incomparably better than literally every small ship in the game, not just the imperial ones (and no, x7 title didnt change it at all, just turn them from obnoxiously OP to just hard OP level).

Undercosted: Scouts and Manaroo, primarily, though the Scout is both undercosted AND shouldn't have an EPT slot. Possibly also Fenn by a point.

It's worth noting with Parattani that had Manaroo cost even one point more, the list wouldn't have fit. Had Manaroo cost a point more AND the scout had no EPT, the list could never have even gotten off the ground.

Fenn/Teroch/Assaj is nowhere near as bad.

ANd I think you're exaggerating to say that 'with mindlink' is in all Scum lists. Two ship lists don't use it that often, and I've seen lists with all non-EPT generics make the cut even at quite large regionals (Quaddunkers yeah).

As noted, many times, I don't disagree that it's probably a hair OP, but it's being made to look a LOT worse than it is by the ships to which it's available.

2 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Undercosted: Scouts and Manaroo, primarily, though the Scout is both undercosted AND shouldn't have an EPT slot. Possibly also Fenn by a point.

It's worth noting with Parattani that had Manaroo cost even one point more, the list wouldn't have fit. Had Manaroo cost a point more AND the scout had no EPT, the list could never have even gotten off the ground.

That is surely an argument for jumpmasters nerf, not the mindlink, right?

Great points @thespaceinvader and @Voitek I couldn't agree more

3 minutes ago, Voitek said:

Going this way, you should also nerf Stress-droid (since it is the only single droid seen on Ywings), Miranda doni (since she is the dominating K-wing pilot), Biggs starlighter (since he is literally the only X-wing pilot ever in use), and ban Defenders as well (since they are incomparably better than literally every small ship in the game, not just the imperial ones (and no, x7 title didnt change it at all, just turn them from obnoxiously OP to just hard OP level).

I dont agree with that logic. You are comparing single "issue" ships to an EPT that is a faction staple as in "whatever you play, you play it with mindlink".

I do agree though that Biggs and Miranda are troublesome and especially Miranda I would seriously consider for some sort of action.

Just now, Voitek said:

That is surely an argument for jumpmasters nerf, not the mindlink, right?

Quite right. I've been advocating that nerf for some time.

And as regards problematic Mindlink lists, please be specific. Don't just say lists with Mindlink are everywhere: WHAT lists are the problem? WHAT lists have Mindlink in and are dominating. Which specific ships?

Because I'd wager it's very rarely Sarco Plank, and very, very frequently Contracted Scouts, Fenn, and Manaroo.

Just now, Ram said:

I dont agree with that logic. You are comparing single "issue" ships to an EPT that is a faction staple as in "whatever you play, you play it with mindlink".

I do agree though that Biggs and Miranda are troublesome and especially Miranda I would seriously consider for some sort of action.

It is defiitely NOT stapled. Yes, it is dominating, I agree. But there is at least several other combos that I have seen in the recent regionals and open series, that were doing not as great as parattani, but will definitely become more popular in the incoming store champs season:
- literally any double-large ship comboes, Ketsu/Assaj/Boba/Dengar/Bossk/Trevura, usually using PTL/VI/Crack/Expertise
- the scum list that recently went undefeated in some large store tournament (Fenn PTL Palob Trick shot Zuckuss VI
- Triple aces Fenn/Terry/zuck with PTL's and VI's
- Brobots arent using Mindlinks either

You can say these arent meta-dominating lists, and that would be true. But since parattani nerf, only the jumpmasters are exlusively using mindlink - and the jumps would still be OP with or without mindlinks anyway.

5 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Quite right. I've been advocating that nerf for some time.

And as regards problematic Mindlink lists, please be specific. Don't just say lists with Mindlink are everywhere: WHAT lists are the problem? WHAT lists have Mindlink in and are dominating. Which specific ships?

Because I'd wager it's very rarely Sarco Plank, and very, very frequently Contracted Scouts, Fenn, and Manaroo.

I agree with you - jumps are the issue not the mindlink. Please refer to my post above for some decently-performing tournament scum lists with no mindlinks included.

16 minutes ago, Voitek said:

Going this way, you should also nerf Stress-droid (since it is the only single droid seen on Ywings), Miranda doni (since she is the dominating K-wing pilot), Biggs starlighter (since he is literally the only X-wing pilot ever in use), and ban Defenders as well (since they are incomparably better than literally every small ship in the game, not just the imperial ones (and no, x7 title didnt change it at all, just turn them from obnoxiously OP to just hard OP level).

Yep, we should!

Maybe not about Defenders though, I think they're now well down the list.

Just now, Stay On The Leader said:

Yep, we should!

Glorious day has come, we agree on something!