If the too good dials are a problem, why not make a nerf that says "treat all green turn manouvers white"? It is a rather light nerf all things considered, but it preserves the power for the weaker ships that need it while targeting all the poster-kids.

2 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I mean I can imagine that if you're newish to the game and only ever found success with silly broken scum cards you might feel a bit protective of them - you've never really known anything else so it seems perfectly normal.

Just going straight to ad homs huh? I've played scum exclusively since they dropped. They're what got me into X-Wing in the first place. I played and play garbage ships like Starvipers and pre-buff Scyks. Outta here with this BS.

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

"This is better than the best EPT so it's fine"

As a wise man once said... Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

It's only better when you consider it in an ideal environment, eg. ships with excellent dials (Fangs/Jumps/Lancers). That's the ships to blame, not the EPT.

If you put it on scyks/G1A's/Hawks, it instantly becomes perfectly fine EPT with power nowhere close to PTL/VI/Crack.

I find your lack of logic... disturbing.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Here's an interesting thought for a nerf to mindlink that keeps it working for interesting lists but stops it working for generics:

Append 'You must ignore your pilot ability whilst any other friendly ship with this upgrade is in play.'

Now generics get the use of it they always have, but Fenn and Assaj and Manaroo don't want to touch it with a barge pole any more.

Except it's still a problem on the Scout, but that's because the Scout is still a problem.

Excellent idea to ruin all the scum lists with interesting pilot abilities, while not touching the biggest EPT-bearing cancer, Triple Jumpmasters

1 minute ago, Voitek said:

Excellent idea to ruin all the scum lists with interesting pilot abilities, while not touching the biggest EPT-bearing cancer, Triple Jumpmasters

Hence the last sentence of my post.

An awful lot of my suggestions as regards Mindlink are entirely contingent on the Scout no longer being ludicrously under-priced/over-slotted.

25 minutes ago, streamdragon said:

Just going straight to ad homs huh? I've played scum exclusively since they dropped. They're what got me into X-Wing in the first place. I played and play garbage ships like Starvipers and pre-buff Scyks. Outta here with this BS.

It was definitely a bit naughty of me.

38 minutes ago, streamdragon said:

Just going straight to ad homs huh? I've played scum exclusively since they dropped. They're what got me into X-Wing in the first place. I played and play garbage ships like Starvipers and pre-buff Scyks. Outta here with this BS.

That's what petty people do when they run out of reasonable arguments

1 hour ago, Voitek said:

As a wise man once said... Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

It's only better when you consider it in an ideal environment, eg. ships with excellent dials (Fangs/Jumps/Lancers). That's the ships to blame, not the EPT.

If you put it on scyks/G1A's/Hawks, it instantly becomes perfectly fine EPT with power nowhere close to PTL/VI/Crack.

I find your lack of logic... disturbing.

In one end, one has to decide what the biggest issue is. Do you or do you not feel that the above mentioned strong ships get better or worse by the very powerful Mindlink? Would Parattanni be easier or harder to handle if the mindlink was not there? Tripple scouts? Mindlink is a staple in those very strong builds for a reason and denying that is just really sticking ones head in the sand. While I do agree with you that some of the scum ships are incredibly strong, I say they would be a lot more manageable if the Mindlink was not there. The brute power of the action economy is obvious.

1 minute ago, Ram said:

In one end, one has to decide what the biggest issue is. Do you or do you not feel that the above mentioned strong ships get better or worse by the very powerful Mindlink? Would Parattanni be easier or harder to handle if the mindlink was not there? Tripple scouts? Mindlink is a staple in those very strong builds for a reason and denying that is just really sticking ones head in the sand. While I do agree with you that some of the scum ships are incredibly strong, I say they would be a lot more manageable if the Mindlink was not there. The brute power of the action economy is obvious.

Would triple Scouts be easier to handle if the Scout didn't have an EPT?

Would Parattani work at all if the Scout didn't have an EPT and Manaroo cost a point more?

Mindlink is a symptom, not the cause.

I played against the double-PTL Shadow Casters and they're very good. But they're not a patch on Attani Mindlink - I believe Tom Reed, who took the casters to Worlds cut last year, has switched to Mindlinked triple jumps.

The problem is not mindlink. Remove the Jumpmasters or balance them properly and there would be no need to change it. Mindlink on squads with no Jumpmasters is perfectly balanced/fine.

If Jumps stay as they are, i believe a good way to balance the EPT would be to remove the limit on stress tokens or move it up by one. Getting only one stress from the upgrade isnt that big of a deal. Having a chance to be stressed twice would make it the double edged sword its supposed to be.

Still, i'm almost certain that even without minlink, Jumpmasters would dominate. The ship is just too good for it's cost.

To everyone saying people are whining for no reason. When you have 13 scum squads in a top 16 of an open event, there is a problem. Out of those 13 squads, how many had Jumpmasters...? :-)

4 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I played against the double-PTL Shadow Casters and they're very good. But they're not a patch on Attani Mindlink - I believe Tom Reed, who took the casters to Worlds cut last year, has switched to Mindlinked triple jumps.

Either is a strong list, and both have their upsides and downsides (PTL gets 4 actions to Mindlink's 3 and has stronger end-game potential if you lose a ship, Mindlink is cheaper and more resistant to bumps and keeps the dial flexible, but falls down dead in the endgame when you're down to one ship; using MIndlink on two-ship lists is tricksy) but neither is remotely close to brokenly or even problematically powerful.

10 minutes ago, Thormind said:

Still, i'm almost certain that even without minlink, Jumpmasters would dominate. The ship is just too good for it's cost.

This. After the deadeye nerf they were briefly forgotten, and then Marcel Manzano (I apologise if I am mispronouncing the name) took 3*Jumps with ADAPTABILITY to one of the large american regionals and only lost the final game. Educated guess, they would be equally good with Crack Shot, Trick shot, hell - probably even VI with some initiative bid!

19 minutes ago, Ram said:

In one end, one has to decide what the biggest issue is. Do you or do you not feel that the above mentioned strong ships get better or worse by the very powerful Mindlink? Would Parattanni be easier or harder to handle if the mindlink was not there? Tripple scouts? Mindlink is a staple in those very strong builds for a reason and denying that is just really sticking ones head in the sand. While I do agree with you that some of the scum ships are incredibly strong, I say they would be a lot more manageable if the Mindlink was not there. The brute power of the action economy is obvious.

Obviously nerfing mindlink would make jumps more manegeable... same as x7 nerf made defenders a bit more manageable; same way as SLAM nerf would make Miranda Doni manageable. I'm just not sure what does it proove?

The whole point of mindlink is: it is turning weak and mediocre scum ships (scyks/G1A's/Hawks/Firesprays) to a level when they can almost be taken to a tournament (but they still are too weak to get any reasonable results; they still are nowehere close to double-large scum ships lists).

This, in my opinion, is a reason enough not to touch mindlink at all.

3 minutes ago, Voitek said:

Obviously nerfing mindlink would make umps more menegeable... same as x7 nerf made defenders a bit more manageable; same way as SLAM nerf would make Miranda Doni manageable. I'm just not sure what does it proove?

The whole point of mindlink is: it is turning weak and mediocre scum ships (scyks/G1A's/Hawks/Firesprays) to a level when they can almost be taken to a tournament (but they still are too weak to get any reasonable results; they still are nowehere close to double-large scum ships lists).

This, in my opinion, is a reason enough not to touch mindlink at all.

That is a very strange approach to fixing problems... Release something very powerful to lift weak cards up and then nerf all the stronger cards? So everyone needs 3+ mindlinks? No, that is not my cup of tea at all.

So if we make something overpowered that makes bad ships good we shouldn't worry that it also makes good ships too good?

This is an odd design logic. You make the bad stuff better but the margin of difference to the good stuff actually increases because the benefits of the better dial on the good stuff is magnified.

1 hour ago, Ram said:

That is a very strange approach to fixing problems... Release something very powerful to lift weak cards up and then nerf all the stronger cards? So everyone needs 3+ mindlinks? No, that is not my cup of tea at all.

do you think that what they are doing now - nerfing random upgrade cards - works better? Because what they are doing now is only killing very specific builds but not making any of the weaker stuff viable.

Two months ago we had parattani, dengaroo, triple jumps, some random 3-ship mindlink builds like Fenn/Terry/Manaroo, double large ships builds, bossk+zuckuss builds.

Now half of those builds has been nerfed (parattani, bossk/zuckuss, dengaroo), probably for good, but did it make any of the obscure ships appear more? Vipers, Kirahex, Scyks, Hawks? (Okay, Palob was always decent). No it didnt, so my point is kind of valid - nerfing stuff without buffing weak stuff ain't enough to fix a faction.

4 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

If the too good dials are a problem, why not make a nerf that says "treat all green turn manouvers white"? It is a rather light nerf all things considered, but it preserves the power for the weaker ships that need it while targeting all the poster-kids.

And now you literally can't clear stress, so as soon as you take the first stress token you're hosed. That's rather more than a "light" nerf.

"Green turns", I think, is supposed to be hard turns only. Still leaves the 1/2 straights and banks.

I mean, it's still a pointless nerf, but I dont think he meant to remove all green maneuvers entirely.

57 minutes ago, Voitek said:

do you think that what they are doing now - nerfing random upgrade cards - works better? Because what they are doing now is only killing very specific builds but not making any of the weaker stuff viable.

Two months ago we had parattani, dengaroo, triple jumps, some random 3-ship mindlink builds like Fenn/Terry/Manaroo, double large ships builds, bossk+zuckuss builds.

Now half of those builds has been nerfed (parattani, bossk/zuckuss, dengaroo), probably for good, but did it make any of the obscure ships appear more? Vipers, Kirahex, Scyks, Hawks? (Okay, Palob was always decent). No it didnt, so my point is kind of valid - nerfing stuff without buffing weak stuff ain't enough to fix a faction.

Random!? The changes were very specific and spot on to handle cards that has made the meta unballanced. There are a few more cards that needs fixing, one of them we are talking about n this thread, but the changes made the game better and more ballanced even if my heart aces a bit for the palp owners out there. And the goal is not to make vipers etc playable. That will come in an Aces or Veterans pack later on as it did for the Defenders and Bombers.

29 minutes ago, streamdragon said:

"Green turns", I think, is supposed to be hard turns only. Still leaves the 1/2 straights and banks.

I mean, it's still a pointless nerf, but I dont think he meant to remove all green maneuvers entirely.

whoops. missed that word "turns"

Also, technically the R4 change had nothing to do with the J5K, as it was actually a rule change in the TFA core set. I believe it was implemented to settle "spend to attack" issues that had already popped up wrt Dark Curse.

15 hours ago, streamdragon said:

Also, technically the R4 change had nothing to do with the J5K, as it was actually a rule change in the TFA core set. I believe it was implemented to settle "spend to attack" issues that had already popped up wrt Dark Curse.

Indeed, the clarfication there solved a contradiction in the FAQ - that Deadeye could be used to attack Curse (therefore, target isn't the defender at the time, so Curse can't block it) but could also be used to trigger R4 (so target IS the defender or there's no lock target for R4). The clarification made perfect sense, and just also happened to be a minor nerf to the then-current jumpmaster combo. But it wasn't even close to enough, hence the Deadeye nerf.

18 hours ago, Thormind said:

The problem is not mindlink. Remove the Jumpmasters or balance them properly and there would be no need to change it. Mindlink on squads with no Jumpmasters is perfectly balanced/fine.

Ok, although I believe the most powerful version of 'Paratanni' that's being devloped now doesn't use Jumpmasters and replaces Manaroo with 28pts of cloaked Palob.

Mindlink without Jumpmasters > Mindlink with Jumpmasters?

3 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Ok, although I believe the most powerful version of 'Paratanni' that's being devloped now doesn't use Jumpmasters and replaces Manaroo with 28pts of cloaked Palob.

Mindlink without Jumpmasters > Mindlink with Jumpmasters?

100% true. Definitely the new sick tech from NonRonCon. Absolutely all of us are flying this most powerful version. No bamboozle guaranteed.

26 minutes ago, DerekT said:

100% true. Definitely the new sick tech from NonRonCon. Absolutely all of us are flying this most powerful version. No bamboozle guaranteed.

This thread is in violation of the NonRonCon Posting Standards™.

@DerekT - Please refrain from posting further privileged information in public posts.

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