Or are they just useless at this point?

Yep.

The most prevalent things atm are two types of large ship lists, some with brutally high attack power, ex ghost and Torpboats jumps. If you can block and manufacture a game winning plan against the stupid stupid high firepower of these lists, you'll do great vs the rest of the field. Also Heragator is a super pain for low PS.

I would say its Tier1-possible IF you create a plan for those 3 hard counter lists.

Rest is all the standard swarm required flying: block everything. (Watch out for attanni Fenn ray. He maintains his focus, so you need to block him into not having a shot)

The more I write, the more I'm coming to believe this meta is actually cancerous.

See my tell me the meta thread also for an idea.

I have been out of X-wing for a bit and trying to get back in, Please explain what a torpboat is. Is that based on a K-Wing?

No, it's a jumpmaster5000 with torpedoes.

Jumpmasters are all there is nowadays.

Besides for the Rebel ones and Wampa, pretty much useless.

Blocking doesn't do a whole lot against Mindlink and Expertise. It helps against Defenders now, but if a Falcon has Expertise it's actually in its best interest to bump into you so that one less ship is shooting at it while it still gets Rey's ability and Expertise.

Same thing with Kylo RAC. It's better to just slam headlong into something and use the Dauntless title than take an extra 2-3 damage.

The TIE Fighter needs to carry its weight in points and carry its weight in opportunity cost. Opportunity cost that could be spent putting Whisper into your list instead of Inquisitor for example. Either you have Wampa who can easily do 14 points of damage to something, you have Rex which can easily contribute enough to the survivability of a list, or you get a fancy 26 point Ahsoka that's literally invincible unless you have PS9+.

But just an Academy Pilot? A Crackshot Black Squadron? Naked Backstabber? Not doing a whole lot and there aren't many squads that can fit them without paying too much opportunity cost.

btw welcome back.

If you're coming back, you can easily do great things with a swarm cuz most players nowadays don't have the understanding of how to play vs blocking.

A modern swarm that is pretty amazing is this:

QuickDraw Swarm Leader, Electronic baffle or FCS, Title, Lightweight Frame

+ Youngster + Rage

4 AP.

You could also go Howlrunner vs Youngster Rage. Or add Pattern Analyzer to QD

Short answer... if "TIE fighters" is a swarm of 5+ Imperial /ln's, no.

However: If you mean lists using TIEs or count TIE/FOs and TIE/SFs, then yes.

Are Imp list Still Competitive?

Depends what you fly.

5 minutes ago, devotedknight said:

Are Imp list Still Competitive?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA>

(maybe)

I still Rec a read to my other thread "tell me the meta"

Imo, the strongest ships atm are:

QuickDraw
Vessery (usually with x7)
OL
RAC

The ok list:
Ryad
Major Stridan (ppl aren't convinced, but I am fully convinced)
Inquisitor

Why Vessery over Maarek?

35 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Major Stridan (ppl aren't convinced, but I am fully convinced)

Count me too ! His ability is amazing and give full support to your ships !

27 minutes ago, devotedknight said:

Why Vessery over Maarek?

In one word : Lock, with so much possibility for lock for the empire, Vessery's ability work fine ! But if you need a better PS Maarek will help you.

2 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

The more I write, the more I'm coming to believe this meta is actually cancerous.

Care to expound upon that?

1 minute ago, Darth Meanie said:

Care to expound upon that?

Lol. not to be a self-promoter or anything but read my other thread. I discussed it over there. Just lazy. Nothing special.

2 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

The most prevalent things atm are two types of large ship lists, some with brutally high attack power, ex ghost and Torpboats jumps. If you can block and manufacture a game winning plan against the stupid stupid high firepower of these lists, you'll do great vs the rest of the field. Also Heragator is a super pain for low PS.

2 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Rest is all the standard swarm required flying: block everything. (Watch out for attanni Fenn ray. He maintains his focus, so you need to block him into not having a shot)

These two things also.

2 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Lol. not to be a self-promoter or anything but read my other thread. I discussed it over there. Just lazy. Nothing special.

Fair enough. Just the usual stuff I don't get cuz I'm not that meta-focused. Game on.

I am in the camp that standard TIE fighters are still competitive. I flew them exclusively this last Vassal Season, and the only lost games down to player error. They still stand up to top tier lists, but you have to know what your preferred engagement looks like.

You have to be intelligent with your engagements, but 7-8 ships against 2 has worked well in my experience. In the past year I have run an 8 TIE swarm with Wampa, Chaser, and 6 Academy Pilots to good effect. In the past few months I have subbed out 2-3 TIE Fighters for a slightly stronger ship, like an x7 Defender, TIE /sf, or Striker, and that has also worked well for me. Being able to throw 10-15 dice at a blocked ship really makes it disappear quickly, regardless of what it is. I really enjoy it because it makes the game much more intellectually stimulating because I have to design my approaches, plan for different asteroid placements, and predict my opponent's best/worst moves.

TL;DR - If you are looking for an easy button, the answer is no. If you have a plan and want to practice it, yes.

Gersun made the QD Swarm Leader list.

And I'm also thinking of trying QD with SL and Frame only. with Howl Adaptability. -> Cuz Evades and Raging on the ties is a little conflicting

3 minutes ago, Gersun said:

TL;DR - If you are looking for an easy button, the answer is no. If you have a plan and want to practice it, yes.

I've played before nothing is easy and nor do I want easy! My favorite list is four Bombers which I did extremely well with. To bad bombers aren't viable. They are still my favorite ship. Though I did lots of damage and took out many ships. they are very hard in the end game!

(26) Major Rhymer

(3) Push the Limit

(2) Extra Munitions

(6) Advanced Proton Torpedoes

(39) Total

Five hit every time at range 2. But I think that Major Rhymer and APT are just to expensive.

7-8 ties still can dominate, but you have to know what your opponent is flying. I think the crack swarm is the best iteration of this. The blockers deny all the actions, and then the crackshots let all the damage roll in.

Also it's exhausting to use 4 ships in a 5-6 round tournament day, imagine trying to plan 7-8 ships over that many rounds at worlds... that's why it's not seen as much competitively, because it's a mentally taxing list! That and it is very unforgiving if you don't get your blocks right.

30 minutes ago, devotedknight said:

(26) Major Rhymer

(3) Push the Limit

(2) Extra Munitions

(6) Advanced Proton Torpedoes

(39) Total

Five hit every time at range 2. But I think that Major Rhymer and APT are just to expensive.

.... actually funny enough, my Tier2 fun list that is very very successful runs Rhymer. It is definitely Tier2, but it is also definitely capable of taking games _easily_ off lesser skilled players playing Tier1. Vs a highly competent opponent though it would be very hard. And thus, it is Tier2.

I'm just going to quote myself here:

16 hours ago, CRCL said:

Also a little off topic, but as I've said in other threads; The value of a cheap 2 attack dice ship like an Academy or Prototype is not in it's attack, but it's ability to control where enemy ships can position. On his own he's never going to kill Fenn Rau, but use that Academy to block Fenn so he can't boost into R1, then shoot him at R2 with another ship or two and watch how quickly he evaporates (trust me I've done it plenty of times). Also by blocking you're avoiding return fire on a fragile ship, and possibly getting a R1 shot on another ship in your opponent's squad after spent their tokens. I've had games where my one PS1 blocker literally gets every kill-shot.

Mindlink and passive dice mods have made blocking less devastating than it used to be, but you're still controlling your opponent's movement and denying them actions.

5 minutes ago, CRCL said:

I'm just going to quote myself here:

Mindlink and passive dice mods have made blocking less devastating than it used to be, but you're still controlling your opponent's movement and denying them actions.

Exactly. And you HAVE to be R2-behind-him basically in this case: He would still get to shoot with focus, esp at R1, 5 dice is ow. Tie fighters attempting to hit him at R3, forget it. Impossible. At R1, it is likely you also miss, especially if he happens to roll lucky and not spend focus on attack.

This is why Fenn Rau imo is aggressively undercosted (read: OP), and kind of power creep and NPE. He's also the only one who reliably does damage in this meta. Soontir with 3 dice? NAH.