17 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

I don't think there is much wrong with the tie swarm beyond people not willing to invest the time and mental effort into learning how to fly them well. They still place reasonably when flown well, and there's nothing Fenn can do that's much different from when the Phantom first came out.

Fel and Jax are both still pretty strong when flown well, though I'll concede the triple Interceptor list I'd sadly dead in this era of spike damage.

All in all, I don't really see that the imperials are really in a much different space from last year except they have some tankier fighters in their tool boxes.

Then again, I flew Defenders pre veterans so maybe I just take going into battle as the underdog for granted

These ships needs to be meta competitively good also. Not just kitchen table good.

Both the tie swarm and the interceptors have vanished from the tables. This is not opinions anymore: This is about numbers. They aren't flown. And they aren't winning. Nor Xwings Bwings etc. Soontir and Fel are the best pilots, I think they should be flown a little more, but they're still not good in this meta, where most things are rolling 3+ and effectively TL F.
You can say whatever you want about opinions, but the regionals data backs up the claim that these ships are languishing.

You can say all you want about flying underdog, but the best pilots in the world could not break Worlds Day 1 with better than a 4-2 (failed to get to Day2) with pre-buff Defenders and what not. There is a difference between saying something could be good if people tried harder and something being literally so bad its actually a self-instigated handicap. Never let these become equal in your mind.

18 hours ago, Sparklelord said:

I feel that you've neglected to speak of proactive control elements (stress, ion, tractor).

Admittedly, control lists are in the minority at the moment. But why is that? Everyone knows that tractor beams are strong. Why aren't more Quads, Shadow Caster titles, or TB-TIE/Ds used? Why don't we see many Ion Cannons or ICTs?

The blog definitely left out control element. And blocking is a control element as much as stress,ion, and tractor beam.

The most popular Scum ships at the moment are Asajj and Scouts and Protectorates. Asajj freely stresses which is not a friend of PTL aces. Scouts have intel agent, feedback, and APL and are large base with barrel roll. Definitely not a friend of PTL aces.

Stress is the easiest control element to pull off, so that is why you see it more. R3-A2 simply requires a normal attack. Tactician just requires range 2 with a normal attack. Asajj does it for free. Rebel Captive, Mara Jade, Kylo Title, etc. All free abilities require nothing more than perhaps being in range. This is why it is more prevalent. Ion Cannon requires a) a ship with a cannon and b) giving up 2+ possible damage for a single point of damage and 1 ion token, which does nothing to large base ships, where as a single stress token does the same thing to large ships as small ships.

Tractor beams mostly require actions or giving up damage entirely. When your list only has three ships and you are asking 1/3 of your list to give up potential damage, that is a big offensive loss in a game dominated by red dice. Its just easier to get a ship to churn out TL+ Focus that is good against every list, than it is to setup a tractor beam that may be useless vs some lists, and not to mention building your entire squad around benefitting from the effect. And half the tractor beam effect (moving a ship) doesnt even work against half the ships anyways. Easier to just do damage instead. This is why the quadjumper has not taken off. It weakens your list when you go up against large ships. You are going to spend an action to drop 1 agility to zero? If not, now you just have a weak 2 attack ship, when for the same point cost, you could have just brought a Recruit that sports 3 attack die, good against all lists, or a Z with a missile, good against all lists, etc. In a tournament setting, you need to be good against everything and niche abilities and control elements can hurt in the long haul.

Ion Missiles work against every ship aka 2 ion tokens = good

Conner Nets work against every ship = good

Ion Cannon takes two hits to work against large ships = just okay

Ion Bomb works against every ship = good

ion Torpedo is expensive and only does 1 ion token = bad

ion turret only does 1 token = just okay

Guess which ion control upgrades get used in tournaments at top tables? The ones that work against all ships.

I think people don't fly swarms because the big tournaments are just that - big. Seven ships kills the brain after a long day. Why kill your brain when you can take a three ship list that doesn't gave to fly in formation?

I also think that the top players take 'safe' lists - just look at the prevailance of pre-nerf Palpatine and Paratanni lists. They were such good all rounders that you didn't have to worry about poor match ups. The meta is the most open right now that it's been. Just look at Stele where the ARCs won, facing at least three mindlink lists. I've seen t-65s do well locally, plus the ridiculous z-95/quad jumper swarm. I've even seen firesprays doing well. A friend ran a ludicrous Echo/fel/duchess decoy list that kicked my ass in tournament prep. The combos are out there, and the empire isn't weak.

despite the nerf, triple defenders are still very tough. Despite the nerf, palpatine is still strong - I'm a fundamental believer that good players always knew when to use palp anyway. Mindlink is the current hotness - people have done well so it's drawing all the people who want to win. Palp did the same, back in the day.

I've been flying pretty much exclusively Imperials after the Great Crutch Purge FAQ, and I have to disagree; they've still got plenty of great ships and several different competitive list-building options. Personally, I'm loving the Doom-Upsilon in particular, with Omega Leader and Inquisitor acting as wingmen.

Swarms are in a better place post-Dengaroo, especially with X7s knocked down from stupidly good to merely good. Deathfire is still criminally underrated, Academies are still the best blockers in the game, Kylo adds more pressure on low ship count lists, TIE/Ds rock, Whisper is still great, Pure Sabacc is the most annoying flanker in the game, Quickdraw with homing missiles is hilarious, and so on...

Basically, the sky is not falling.

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Basically, the sky is not falling.

Just slightly tilting. Another JM5K nerf and a TLT nerf would set that right though.

8 hours ago, Estarriol said:

I think people don't fly swarms because the big tournaments are just that - big. Seven ships kills the brain after a long day. Why kill your brain when you can take a three ship list that doesn't gave to fly in formation?

That didn't stop people from flying swarms back in the day. There are die hard swarm players out there that still aren't flying the TIE swarm competitively.

And that's really all I care about right now. Until I see one of the traditional Imperial archetypes do well at an Open or Worlds, I will continue to believe Imperial are down on the meta. Results > Opinions.

P.S. None of this is going to keep me from flying Imperial of course. I'm still taking them to Worlds despite the poor position they're in. We'll see just how well they perform there.

9 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

These ships needs to be meta competitively good also. Not just kitchen table good.

Both the tie swarm and the interceptors have vanished from the tables. This is not opinions anymore: This is about numbers. They aren't flown. And they aren't winning.

Early Imperial fighters are not even kitchen table good, anymore. X-wing and B-wing can get by, but 2-3 Attack, 0 shields, and 1 Action is pretty much just doomed vs. any newer ship, even in the most casual of games.

10 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Early Imperial fighters are not even kitchen table good, anymore. X-wing and B-wing can get by, but 2-3 Attack, 0 shields, and 1 Action is pretty much just doomed vs. any newer ship, even in the most casual of games.

Sorry to keep disagreeing, but here's a recent list of mine that I've been doing very well with:

45 Miranda w/ TLT, C3P0, HomingM, EM, Chips.
25 Airen w/ VI, HomingM, Chips.
30 (2x) Prototype w/ Refit.

Do you know which ships do the most work in this list? Let me give you a hint; they're PS1, and they love to get in the way.

The power of cheap filler ships has never been their pea-shooters (although they can be quite good), their true strength is their ability to control your opponent's positioning options, and take the odd PS1, range 1 shot on tokenless ships.

An academy or prototype is never going to kill Fenn Rau on his own, but if you stick him in the right position and block Fenn, you can setup a couple of Range 2 shots with other ships and make Fenn sad-face. It's not just a hypothetical, I've done it plenty of times.

From what I've observed, the problem isn't that chuds are bad, but that people don't bring them anymore. When the game was young you had less options to fill those awkward points costs, so you'd just shove a couple of Academies in there to round out your list. Now though, the game is older and we have multiple options at each point interval, so it's hard to bring 2x Academies, when sexy, sexy Omega Leader is about the same cost. Even though both options are good, the academies are a bit bland, and require more skill than OL.

That is not to say that I don't think there are some structural problems with the game.