When the Zuckuss/Palp nerfs came in my reaction was "it's a good start". You can't just nerf the current top lists you've to plan ahead and try to shape the coming metagame as well - many times when WotC ban things in Magic there's "we're banning this because it's too good, and we're banning that because after we remove this then that's going to be too good".

What was sitting underneath was that TLT would come back in a big way, especially as the /x7 nerf promoted stress, and that the Manaroo nerf doesn't hit the top Mindlink lists quite hard enough. You can't read too much into recent results because the field is always wide open after a big shake-up and things will consolidate again soon, with Mindlink still dominant and probably still in Paratanni form - I think it's still marginally the best list around, just not 10% better than it's nearest competitor any more.

Once you nerf TLT and Mindlink what's underneath that? It will probably be Crack Shot and Ordnance alpha strikes and bombers, which remove a lot of ships from viability by just deleting them outright. Arguably in there you'd need to do something about Biggs as well because if you make it harder to nuke him off the table he just gets more dominant than ever.

But once you nerf Crack Shot, Biggs and Extra Munitions (as I would) then what's underneath that? That's a lot less clear, it might be rebel regen but I think the post-nerf offense would still be stronger than it was when rebel regen was around (and Poe doesn't like HSCP at all) so I don't think it actually would be.

It might feels like a lot of random things getting nerfed but it's actually quite targeted on an area of the game that has dramatically reduced viable options - overpowered offense (Zuckuss, TLT, Crack Shot, Ordnance) and overpowered defense (/x7, Biggs, Palpatine) with Manaroo arguably supporting both. It's that which has done most of the damage in reducing what options you can spend points on and actually have them stick around long enough to make a game of it. I don't have an endless list of things that need nerfing, but I do think the job was left unfinished and we've potentially been tossed from frying pan to fire.

@Stay On The Leader

If you errated Biggs, TLT, Mindlink what's the thought process behind errated Extra Munitions, and Crackshot? Is this also to further hinder alpha striking lists or is this idea specifically geared to the Jumpmaster; the issue with the errating of everything mentioned is the stability of the game We cannot continually "nerf" things so that the affect of the nerf not only affects that targeted list ship/but also others; For example Crackshot, although Juke is used a lot now if you were not faq'd it it would eliminate another defensive of mod that a small ship could use

Extra Munitions bye bye bombing lists, Sabine (crew) becomes useless; TLT needs a price increase of maybe 1 point but removing TLT means no more Ghosts, no more Y-Wings, K-Wings etc. I think why most of this hasn't occured is because all of the ships that would be affected Finally Biggs I agree he should be "once per round" but are we really in such a NPE that we need to completely change everything?

Ships affected if everything was errated; (Crackshot) every small ship, (TLT) Y-Wings, the VCX-100, K-Wings; Extra Munitions (every ship with bombs) note: this and or crackshot would still not effect the JMK500 at all! Biggs every top tier Rebel list, and the X-WING which is the title for the game is gone. Changing everything does not bring balance, it pushes the Jumpmaster back to the best ship hands down and completely kills any Rebel list.

58 minutes ago, Voitek said:

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.

These are all good and fun-to-play archetypes, but as you say they are not winning. Close to all winning scum lists are mindlinked.

Again, I am not advocating a ban. I just feel that it would be nice to have a non-stress weapon against them. The upgrade is very very good and makes your band that much stronger. There are boatloads of fun thematic options that can be used. For instance, any pilot crit could be given to all mindlink pilots. Heck, you name it, just make something besides stress that screws with this great upgrade to make it more vulnerable.

Just now, Ram said:

These are all good and fun-to-play archetypes, but as you say they are not winning. Close to all winning scum lists are mindlinked.

Again, I am not advocating a ban. I just feel that it would be nice to have a non-stress weapon against them. The upgrade is very very good and makes your band that much stronger. There are boatloads of fun thematic options that can be used. For instance, any pilot crit could be given to all mindlink pilots. Heck, you name it, just make something besides stress that screws with this great upgrade to make it more vulnerable.

Again: what are the lists.

Ignore the EPT, I acknowledge that Mindlink is the most commonly used one. But what are the ships being used with it that you see as problematic?

(Sharing pilot crits would be nice, but you'd have to find some way of explaining what it meant when there's only one copy of a crit in play affecting all three ships - can any ship taking its turn in combat clear the Blind from the guy who took the crit, in particular. And you'd have to be able to do it in a concise enough way to fit the text onto what's an already quite busy card).

17 minutes ago, Cgriffith said:

@Stay On The Leader

If you errated Biggs, TLT, Mindlink what's the thought process behind errated Extra Munitions, and Crackshot? Is this also to further hinder alpha striking lists or is this idea specifically geared to the Jumpmaster; the issue with the errating of everything mentioned is the stability of the game We cannot continually "nerf" things so that the affect of the nerf not only affects that targeted list ship/but also others; For example Crackshot, although Juke is used a lot now if you were not faq'd it it would eliminate another defensive of mod that a small ship could use

It's about looking at what mechanics are making ships inviable, or making games 'unfun'. Alpha strike lists, by their very definition, exist to try and create such an enormous advantage in the first couple of turns that they can dominate the rest of the match. The firepower they bring to do that makes certain ships unplayable if they cannot withstand that weight of fire - you can't justify investing 30pts in a ship if it's going to vanish at the cost of 6pts of Crack Shots or Torpedoes.

I played the **** out of Crack Shot, but I also understand that it's sole purpose is to remove 6 hull from the enemy and 'delete' a ship that would otherwise have survived. BTW I'm talking about nerfs not bans, so I would still aim for Crack Shot being playable (I think in this case I would change the timing so it's not forcing the opponent to blow their defensive tokens before you use it).

I think you're responding as though the cards I name would suddenly stop being playable, instead of still existing but being a little bit worse.

17 minutes ago, Ram said:

These are all good and fun-to-play archetypes, but as you say they are not winning. Close to all winning scum lists are mindlinked.

Again, I am not advocating a ban. I just feel that it would be nice to have a non-stress weapon against them. The upgrade is very very good and makes your band that much stronger. There are boatloads of fun thematic options that can be used. For instance, any pilot crit could be given to all mindlink pilots. Heck, you name it, just make something besides stress that screws with this great upgrade to make it more vulnerable.

Hold on, name those lists please?

I did some legwork and analysed all the winning lists since the FAQ, in tournaments with 20+ people (just a random number, nothing special to back it up).

19: Number of tournaments
Victorious scums list:
6: Non-mindlinked Scums
3: Triple- and Double-mindlinked jumps
2: Other mindlinked scums (including parattani), with 0 or 1 jumpmaster.

I will put it in capitals, to break a common myth and misconception:

THERE IS MORE NON-MINDLINKED SCUM LISTS WINNING TOURNAMENTS THAN MINDLINKED.

On top of that: 3/5 of the mindlink lists are containing two or three jumpmasters, and would be OP even without the mindlinks.

32 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

It's about looking at what mechanics are making ships inviable, or making games 'unfun'. Alpha strike lists, by their very definition, exist to try and create such an enormous advantage in the first couple of turns that they can dominate the rest of the match. The firepower they bring to do that makes certain ships unplayable if they cannot withstand that weight of fire - you can't justify investing 30pts in a ship if it's going to vanish at the cost of 6pts of Crack Shots or Torpedoes.

I played the **** out of Crack Shot, but I also understand that it's sole purpose is to remove 6 hull from the enemy and 'delete' a ship that would otherwise have survived. BTW I'm talking about nerfs not bans, so I would still aim for Crack Shot being playable (I think in this case I would change the timing so it's not forcing the opponent to blow their defensive tokens before you use it).

I think you're responding as though the cards I name would suddenly stop being playable, instead of still existing but being a little bit worse.

By making whatever changes to all the cards your suggesting the one ship it still will not effect is the Jumpmaster (which should not be banned or errated any further period!) Tell me what Scum ships would still perform well enough with the changes you may suggest to Mindlink, or what ships will rise after the Biggs and TLT errated? Extra Munitions, what is the exact plan there, it gives you the ability to fire torpedoes or drop bombs twice, that still wouldn't stop alpha strikes, it would stop Miranda though. What's the balance look like after because making suggestions is one thing watching the game completely change is another

4 hours ago, Voitek said:

On top of that: 3/5 of the mindlink lists are containing two or three jumpmasters, and would be OP even without the mindlinks.

Agreed. First step is to FINALLY address the JM5k. Once that's done we can see how mindlink is really affecting the meta (which I suspect is not all that bad). JM5k is just such a game-breaking ship, it exacerbates problems with powerful cards and combos. Just add 10 points to all JM5ks and be done with it. Sheesh.

8 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

So basically his list of 'lots of ways of double stressing things' was a list of 'things that don't work'.

You do realize you can fit more than one of those mechanics in the same list, right?

Or you can just whine until FFG makes it easier for you to win. I prefer a more active approach to dealing with a problem.

1 hour ago, Sekac said:

You do realize you can fit more than one of those mechanics in the same list, right?

Or you can just whine until FFG makes it easier for you to win. I prefer a more active approach to dealing with a problem.

Oh right, of course.

How many points do you think will be appropriate to dedicate to countering his 3pts of EPT... 40? 50?

I believe the mind link ebt is fine however jmk5 is under costed. I believe nerfs do more harm then good in general. How about buff some stuff instead?

2 hours ago, Sekac said:

You do realize you can fit more than one of those mechanics in the same list, right?

Or you can just whine until FFG makes it easier for you to win. I prefer a more active approach to dealing with a problem.

The point is that almost none of them are actually capable of stacking stress, and the ones that are, can't be taken more than once. The only* one that's capable of stacking stress and not unique is Thermal Detonators.

*OK, Tactician is as well, but it's a LOT harder to use than virtually any of the others.

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Oh right, of course.

How many points do you think will be appropriate to dedicate to countering his 3pts of EPT... 40? 50?

Thermals are 3 (2.5 each if you include EM), R3-A2 is 2, Tactician is 2, Mara Jade is 3... So if you take two of these mechanics, maybe 6 points.

Or are we pretending the only contribution the entire ships have is putting stress down? Ghost with 4 TLT shots a turn obviously is completely worthless as we all know. RAC with Mara Jade is utterly incapable of doing damage. Miranda with bombs?! Terrible ship.

And let's of course also pretend that piles of stress only shut off mind link and the ships themselves are just fine. Fenn Rau without any actions at all doesn't even notice, scouts don't need to fire their torpedoes, we all know 2 attack turrets are OP.

And while we're pretending, let's further pretend that stress inducing mechanics are completely wasted on every non-mindlinked ship. Defenders don't need the free evade, -2 points is all they really need from the title. We all know how efficient Soontir is without actions.

And of course we need to pretend that 2 post-FAQ system opens weren't won with lists that include stress mechanics. And that those lists defeated ML lists while using stress against them, but of course we're pretending that didn't happen either.

You know, if we ignore all these facts, you've actually got a pretty good point!

Mind link isn't a problem, it's some the ships mind link is going on that is problematic. Fen Rau has no business having two foci and autothrusters while spitting out 5 red dice. A mind link Scyk swarm isn't problematic. That tells you where the problem lies. The Protechorate should never have gotten a boost and the Jumpmaster shouldn't have such an amazing dial, a crew, an argomech, an ept, an all hell we really need this ship to sell but no one knows what a Jumpmaster is.

24 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

The point is that almost none of them are actually capable of stacking stress, and the ones that are, can't be taken more than once. The only* one that's capable of stacking stress and not unique is Thermal Detonators.

*OK, Tactician is as well, but it's a LOT harder to use than virtually any of the others.

Almost none? Thermals, Braylen, Nien, Chopper, Tactician. You may call that almost none, but "most" is a little closer

26 minutes ago, Mep said:

Mind link isn't a problem, it's some the ships mind link is going on that is problematic. Fen Rau has no business having two foci and autothrusters while spitting out 5 red dice. A mind link Scyk swarm isn't problematic. That tells you where the problem lies. The Protechorate should never have gotten a boost and the Jumpmaster shouldn't have such an amazing dial, a crew, an argomech, an ept, an all hell we really need this ship to sell but no one knows what a Jumpmaster is.

Why shouldn't Fangs have a boost? It makes sense for how they were designed and gave Scum an actual Ace ship that felt unique to them.

56 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Almost none? Thermals, Braylen, Nien, Chopper, Tactician. You may call that almost none, but "most" is a little closer

Braylen and Nien both use R3A2, Chopper will only stack stress if you manage to block the same ship twice in a row, and see my note about Tactician

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

Braylen and Nien both use R3A2, Chopper will only stack stress if you manage to block the same ship twice in a row, and see my note about Tactician

It doesn't matter if they both use R3-A2. They are very different platforms that deliver the stress differently and have it affect them differently top. Chopper doesn't have to block the same ship twice. If he blocks 2 ships at once, one will get a single stress, the other gets 2.

He has to block the same ship twice to double stress more than one ship in mindlink, which was the whole point of the discussion.

Ditto Braylen and Nien.

The whole point fo the discussion is that single stressing everyone and double stressing one guy isn't that useful, when it comes to mindlink, and you posted a giant list of things which single stress everything, most of which CANNOT double stress anything, and the ones that can are unique or very difficult to use or both.

50 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Why shouldn't Fangs have a boost? It makes sense for how they were designed and gave Scum an actual Ace ship that felt unique to them.

They should, if they added on engine upgrade. Them having it by default means they get autothrusters by default now too. Just stacking over powered cards on top of each other. This is why they have to keep nerfing things and why these threads exist.

7 minutes ago, Mep said:

They should, if they added on engine upgrade. Them having it by default means they get autothrusters by default now too. Just stacking over powered cards on top of each other. This is why they have to keep nerfing things and why these threads exist.

So a ship FFG designed to get up in people's face (as shown by both the title and the EPT that came with it) has to be hamstrung for its intended purpose because you think it shouldn't have a debatably OP card? Not exactly compelling logic.

17 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

He has to block the same ship twice to double stress more than one ship in mindlink, which was the whole point of the discussion.

Ditto Braylen and Nien.

The whole point fo the discussion is that single stressing everyone and double stressing one guy isn't that useful, when it comes to mindlink, and you posted a giant list of things which single stress everything, most of which CANNOT double stress anything, and the ones that can are unique or very difficult to use or both.

So we're going to continue to ignore people winning high level events using stress as evidence that stress can get the job done.

"Just because it has worked, doesn't mean it can work! Give us the nerf!"

That about right?

37 minutes ago, Mep said:

They should, if they added on engine upgrade. Them having it by default means they get autothrusters by default now too. Just stacking over powered cards on top of each other. This is why they have to keep nerfing things and why these threads exist.

The fang is scum's interceptor. Compare it to the TIE Interceptor. It gains a hull and TL, loses the evade action. And loses the second modification slot to get free evades occasionally for range 1 shots. Note that of the big nerfs, the fang was not one of them. It's good, but not overpowered.

Take this from a very narrow point of view since i had been mostly flying Parattani.

The reasons Attani is good is because it exponentially increases your action economy, and it also allows you for action and maneuvering flexibility. Stress barely scratches the action economy since most of the lists using Attani, to offset the backdraw, they play ships with good greens mostly:

Let's compare two 3 list ships, one with attani and another withouth it, the double stress would go into the third ship:

Ship 1 - One action

Ship 2 - One action

Ship 3 - No actions

1-1-0

An attani list would get:

Ship 1 - Focus

Shipt 2 - Focus + one action

Ship 3 - Focus

1-2-1 The focus can be given by either ship 1 or 2, so you are still gaining other of the main benefits of Attani, action flexibility, not to speak that one ship without dice modifier in many situations means disaster.

If there wasn't stress, it would be 1-1-1 vs 1-2-2.

The weakness is that not allowing them to take actions, their flexibility drops heavilly (Parattani for turret/tl/mobility), and that if you take down ships it gets very weak as most of those lists are made with Mindlink taken into account to function properly. I can see tho how scouts can get even better action economy and they also take advantadge of their high alpha to never get into that situation of a scrappy endgame, or do so very favoured so it doesn't matter at that point.

On April 6, 2017 at 4:04 AM, VanderLegion said:

Because the fire spray still isn't good. And sycks are getting better, but still not generally to the level of the more commonly used scum ships. Mindlink is good, but it's not going to cause you to take weaker ships when there's better choices that can ALSO take it.

Mindlink - 3 focus for one action
Fleet officer - 2 focus for one action

Mindlink - Unlimited range
Fleet Officer - range 1-2

Mindlink - Works if any of the ships take a focus action. This means if one (or more) ship is stressed or bumps, a different ship can provide the tokens for it
Fleet Officer - Only works from the one ship. If that ship is stressed or bumps, it can't trigger.

Mindlink - Shares around stress tokens if you take stress, but only shares 1, and is generally taken with ships that have good greens so at least one can clear it again
Fleet Officer - stresses you in the act of getting the tokens. means you're limited to the bombers vastly inferior greens every round, and if you need to k-turn you can't use FO the round before, and if you do a white the round after using it, you can't use it again

There's more to it than that. I've run firespray and scyks with mindlink and it's really not that awesome because stress is pretty rough to deal with.

The reason parattini worked is the ships in question all have dials full of green and green hard turns in particular. HWKs don't need to turn much, but there aren't many other scum ships that work with it. Mindlink doesn't make G1As better or YVs or whatever.