Stressbot, huh, yeah,

what is it good for -

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! ♫

Aside from my cheesy opening lyrics, should stressbot still be an auto-include for most Rebel lists? I know it's point efficient, but stress these days just isn't what it used to be.

Got an opinion? Post and let me know, love stressbot y-wing to death, and would love to be proved wrong

I don't really understand your sentiment that stress isn't good these days. It's excellent! If you're good at flying a stresshog, you can make life hell even for a Mindlink player. Just look at Paul Heaver's Naboo Open matches.

Problem is you are relying only on the Stress bot for your control. Let me guess, a stress hog too? Well ever since it has been reduced to not making double stress attacks it isn't the same.

However stress control is still is a great counter to mindlink. It drops them all down to white maneuvers which means all the K-turns, T-rolls and S-loops (save for the JM5K of course) is no longer an option for them. You have to have more than one ship stressing though.

Haven't seen Mr Heaver's recent matches, will have to youtube them.

Was hoping that stress would still be relevant in this meta since at the last couple of tourneys I'd taken 2nd place with a stressbot, HWK, Miranda list, but didn't play against any biggs lists, & only one mindlink list that did'nt give two craps about stress whatsoever (ugh, that dial & point cost) while straight up table-ing my list.

Theoretically, it seems to me that you could time engagements against a biggs list so you can stress key target(s) without having to shoot at biggs, unless your opponent has had a lot of flight time with his list. So maybe stress would still be viable if this was the only case.

Stress has helped me kill lists time and again that would have otherwise dominated the whole game (aces, decimators, falcons, etc.), and heck, you could even prevent a Miranda player from action bombing you!

If I didn't know that sooo many players were going with mindlink u-boat lists, I'd say stressbot is hands down an auto include for most Rebel lists.

Most decent Mindlink lists have too many greens to be heavily penalised by Stress and there is usually at least 1 ship to act as Focus battery. Stressing is useful for preventing K-turns and T-rolls on Fangs but it certainly doesn't come close to shutting the list down.

Now that /x7 Defenders take Evade actions rather than getting the token for free, it is rather better against them, particularly PTL Ryad.

1 minute ago, terrymac94 said:

Haven't seen Mr Heaver's recent matches, will have to youtube them.

Was hoping that stress would still be relevant in this meta since at the last couple of tourneys I'd taken 2nd place with a stressbot, HWK, Miranda list, but didn't play against any biggs lists, & only one mindlink list that did'nt give two craps about stress whatsoever (ugh, that dial & point cost) while straight up table-ing my list.

Theoretically, it seems to me that you could time engagements against a biggs list so you can stress key target(s) without having to shoot at biggs, unless your opponent has had a lot of flight time with his list. So maybe stress would still be viable if this was the only case.

Stress has helped me kill lists time and again that would have otherwise dominated the whole game (aces, decimators, falcons, etc.), and heck, you could even prevent a Miranda player from action bombing you!

If I didn't know that sooo many players were going with mindlink u-boat lists, I'd say stressbot is hands down an auto include for most Rebel lists.

well the effects of stress has gone down with a lot of cheap stress mitigation (pattern analyzer) and stress sinks (inspiring recruit). Combine that with all the ways to still pass tokens even through stress (mindlink) and yeah for may lists stress doesn't stop the actions. But then again stress never really stopped actions in the first place unless it was self induced (such as red maneuvers). A simple green maneuver and you were free to do what ever you wanted. If you wanted to lock someone down you had to either double stress them or pair it with something that prevents them from clearing it like Ion tokens.

Yeah Karhedron, that's the problem I was running into with mindlink lists. Plus the point cost is super cheap for a jumpmaster making half points for it a joke, and the agromech + munitions combo x2 super OP :/

It's just so magical when a near - dead jumpmaster makes you chase it with what left of your squad just to get an ok amount of points so MOV isn't completely wrecked.

1 hour ago, Marinealver said:

Problem is you are relying only on the Stress bot for your control. Let me guess, a stress hog too? Well ever since it has been reduced to not making double stress attacks it isn't the same.

I'm not sure what you mean here. When was it reduced to not making double stress attacks?

10 minutes ago, Kdubb said:

I'm not sure what you mean here. When was it reduced to not making double stress attacks?

Maybe he's referring to when both TLT shots gave stress?

Just now, SabineKey said:

Maybe he's referring to when both TLT shots gave stress?

That was never the case though. The stresshog always just gave the 2 stress from the first and second targeting of a ship with the use of the BTL title. Tactician no longer double stresses after that change, but he seems to be referring to R3-A2 directly.

Just now, Kdubb said:

That was never the case though. The stresshog always just gave the 2 stress from the first and second targeting of a ship with the use of the BTL title. Tactician no longer double stresses after that change, but he seems to be referring to R3-A2 directly.

Okay. I must have been thinking of Tactician, then. Sorry.

4 hours ago, Karhedron said:

Most decent Mindlink lists have too many greens to be heavily penalised by Stress and there is usually at least 1 ship to act as Focus battery. Stressing is useful for preventing K-turns and T-rolls on Fangs but it certainly doesn't come close to shutting the list down.

Now that /x7 Defenders take Evade actions rather than getting the token for free, it is rather better against them, particularly PTL Ryad.

Stress is fine against mindlink, IMO. A single tactician is useless, but most stress platforms are double-stressors. That's 4 stress on the mindlinked squad (if we can agree that the average mindlink is 3 ships), which is not nothin'. Yes, they'll almost certainly be getting focus next turn (and that's why Attani Mindlink is even good), but it's more than just red maneuvers you're stopping. There's:

-Jumpaster's barrel roll and target lock. Blocking power drops dramatically and ordnance firing is slowed to next turn.

-Protectorate's barrel roll, boost, and target lock. You've got to find a way to make the loss of those actions matter, but those are big actions to lose!

-Lancer's evade, ability to rotate arc, and target lock. That evade is huge on Asajj.

So you pick the ship that needs the double stress and shoot it with your second shot (Stresshog, or Braylen Gunner). Keep in mind, the first shot can shoot whichever ship in case you want to try to strip tokens.

Then the next turn, the opponent has at most cleared down to one stressed ship. So shoot that ship again with your first shot and the other two are stressed again. With your second shot, stress someone else, and now there's 2 double stressed ships, and one with a single stress. Rinse, repeat. Yes, that third ship can keep feeding the list tokens, so kill it with the rest of your list. If you're preventing barrel rolls, boosts, evades, and target locks over the course of several turns, you have to be able to make that matter.

If you're getting beaten with just the focus action alone, something is going wrong, but it isn't stress's fault.

To your question "auto-include" - no.
However, I am planning for it to be at Worlds NEXT WEEK, I'm a little excited, more than it should be. A lot of people love to fly Rebels, and a lot of people love to fly lists better players come up with (and then get confused when they don't auto-win.) But anyway, it is a form of soft control. I have one whole point dedicated to it in my list so if it doesn't show that's fine too. (The aforementioned Inspiring Recruit.)

9 hours ago, Sekac said:

If you're getting beaten with just the focus action alone, something is going wrong, but it isn't stress's fault.

Even with Stress, a JM with free Focus can convert that into a TL with R4. If they roll well enough not to need the TL on one turn they can save it for the next. Using R4 to convert spare Focus tokens into TLs which they can then bank is a crucial part of the synergy.

I had Braylen with Gunner/Stressbot. I was double stressing a mindlinked ship most turns and the majority of shots coming my way still had full mods (especially nasty as the 2 Scouts had Torps and Munitions). I am a decent player and I was running a reasonable list but I still got wiped fairly comprehensively. If you look back at a game and can't identify any real mistakes (in your list or playing) or bad luck then I think the opponent's list needs to be considered.

I'm running Stresshog and it tends to do nicely - it's not necessarily a silver bullet to the top meta lists but it's a nice shield against all sorts of other janky stuff that people are trying to do. I've got it in place of Biggs because I figure it probably does the same job of attracting fire and may achieve more in the time on the table. I'm switching between the Stresshog and Jess at the moment to see which I prefer. I want to like Jess more but time and again that second stress just shuts something down that I don't want to have to deal with (I'm looking at you, Kylo!).

I've run it against Paratanni enough to know that it's only a minor help. The advantage you get while they clear the stress is pretty small and the Mindlink passing stress around does little to prevent them swinging around to finish the hog off before it gets another round of fire in.

15 hours ago, terrymac94 said:

Stressbot, huh, yeah,

what is it good for -

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! ♫

Aside from my cheesy opening lyrics, should stressbot still be an auto-include for most Rebel lists? I know it's point efficient, but stress these days just isn't what it used to be.

Got an opinion? Post and let me know, love stressbot y-wing to death, and would love to be proved wrong

Stressbot alone isnt that much of a problem. Stressbot+Biggs now thats nasty The Ywing dial is average at best, especially the Rebel version. You are forced to get ships into your arc on a ship that relatively hard to maneuver. Getting a strong control effect out of this is quite normal.

Problem is with Biggs around you can be much more reckless with the Ywing. It's not just viable, it is quite strong. Without the stressbots the meta would not be the same. You might not see their effect clearly because as long as it's predominant, players are not ¸bringing the ships that it counters so easily.

The stressbot usually does the majority of the damage for me on the initial joust. He shoots last with 3 shots after everyone else stripped their tokens\abilities.

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

Even with Stress, a JM with free Focus can convert that into a TL with R4. If they roll well enough not to need the TL on one turn they can save it for the next. Using R4 to convert spare Focus tokens into TLs which they can then bank is a crucial part of the synergy.

Absolutely it is. But if they are stressed, they can only set the TL for torpedo firing next turn. If they are unstressed, one can focus for everyone, and the other(s) can TL for torpedoes immediately. That's a big difference.

If they're using the TL to modify their primaries, then yes they're hitting you with fully modded attacks. But those are still only 2 dice primaries. Your list has to be able to stay ahead of that damage curve, which isn't that big of an ask.

13 hours ago, Sekac said:

Stress is fine against mindlink, IMO. A single tactician is useless, but most stress platforms are double-stressors. That's 4 stress on the mindlinked squad (if we can agree that the average mindlink is 3 ships), which is not nothin'. Yes, they'll almost certainly be getting focus next turn (and that's why Attani Mindlink is even good), but it's more than just red maneuvers you're stopping. There's:

-Jumpaster's barrel roll and target lock. Blocking power drops dramatically and ordnance firing is slowed to next turn.

-Protectorate's barrel roll, boost, and target lock. You've got to find a way to make the loss of those actions matter, but those are big actions to lose!

-Lancer's evade, ability to rotate arc, and target lock. That evade is huge on Asajj.

So you pick the ship that needs the double stress and shoot it with your second shot (Stresshog, or Braylen Gunner). Keep in mind, the first shot can shoot whichever ship in case you want to try to strip tokens.

Then the next turn, the opponent has at most cleared down to one stressed ship. So shoot that ship again with your first shot and the other two are stressed again. With your second shot, stress someone else, and now there's 2 double stressed ships, and one with a single stress. Rinse, repeat. Yes, that third ship can keep feeding the list tokens, so kill it with the rest of your list. If you're preventing barrel rolls, boosts, evades, and target locks over the course of several turns, you have to be able to make that matter.

If you're getting beaten with just the focus action alone, something is going wrong, but it isn't stress's fault.

That all sounds well and good, but it's not a simple focus token that concerns me, it's the fact that most mindlink players I've seen lately use r4 agromech with GC and plasma torps.

Think double stressing that u-boat limited it in some way? Nope! In a lot of cases the jumpmaster can just do a white sloop, have ya in arc, and send some torps off at ya (and with EM, they pack quite a bit of heat).

How, you may ask? Why, by having either a slow playing Fenn or 2nd u-boat take a focus for it's action of course! Making a 4 die plasma torp shot fully modified (the player spends the focus and immediately acquires TL, the focus still modifies the attack).

hahaha, if only it were just a ship getting a focus token, then yes. Something would be going very wrong...

1 minute ago, terrymac94 said:

That all sounds well and good, but it's not a simple focus token that concerns me, it's the fact that most mindlink players I've seen lately use r4 agromech with GC and plasma torps.

Think double stressing that u-boat limited it in some way? Nope! In a lot of cases the jumpmaster can just do a white sloop, have ya in arc, and send some torps off at ya (and with EM, they pack quite a bit of heat).

How, you may ask? Why, by having either a slow playing Fenn or 2nd u-boat take a focus for it's action of course! Making a 4 die plasma torp shot fully modified (the player spends the focus and immediately acquires TL, the focus still modifies the attack).

hahaha, if only it were just a ship getting a focus token, then yes. Something would be going very wrong...

Basically you're [correctly] upset at the really good dial of the JMK.

That said, having a single ship, kitted in a single way, available to only one faction (the stresshog) be a silver bullet isn't a good solution. I wouldn't want stress mechanics to be FURTHER rewarded to fix this problem, as everything below the power curve of the JMK would just inherently get blasted as well.

Better to just address the JMK directly.

The dial is a pain, and the OP combos it can do are pretty great as well.

Personally what frustrates me most about the whole thing is how cheap a u-boat is to run.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the whole half-points for a half destroyed large base suppose to make people consider using more small base ships in their lists so ships like the Falcon back in it's OP days wasn't auto-include for most players lists?

Aaaannnnnddddd here comes the contracted scout, weighing in at 25 points ladies and gentleman!

So if you manage to mostly kill a u-boat on first engagement. Whoopee. You've just taken 2 plasma torps to the face with a Fenn aproaching your broadside, soon to be backside on next turn. But hey, at least there's that 2nd round of torps to rip through whatever's left of your list!

They make a ridiculous, incredibly accessible list for most players who want to get in on the competitive scene which is great.

Real great...

Anyways, I run a Rey list now (without a stresshog, sadly) and have taken a hard lesson in engaging them better.

9 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

Basically you're [correctly] upset at the really good dial of the JMK.

That said, having a single ship, kitted in a single way, available to only one faction (the stresshog) be a silver bullet isn't a good solution. I wouldn't want stress mechanics to be FURTHER rewarded to fix this problem, as everything below the power curve of the JMK would just inherently get blasted as well.

Better to just address the JMK directly.

This and this.

....but the designers have proven they're gonna rewrite every word on every card one can use on them before they touch that actual ship. Why avoid the obvious? IDK.

Have no idea clanofwolves.

Just a shot in the dark here, but maybe - much like the u-wing - things will make more sense when new cards and ships are released in future expansions...

Seems that in terms of balance, they at least try to aim for cards and abilities not being outright broken when some new ship or card is released.

I personally think the stressmule (Braylenn) is worth the extra points if you want stress control.

I also thinkit is more relevant with aces trying to FAQ their way back.

3 hours ago, terrymac94 said:

That all sounds well and good, but it's not a simple focus token that concerns me, it's the fact that most mindlink players I've seen lately use r4 agromech with GC and plasma torps.

Think double stressing that u-boat limited it in some way? Nope! In a lot of cases the jumpmaster can just do a white sloop, have ya in arc, and send some torps off at ya (and with EM, they pack quite a bit of heat).

How, you may ask? Why, by having either a slow playing Fenn or 2nd u-boat take a focus for it's action of course! Making a 4 die plasma torp shot fully modified (the player spends the focus and immediately acquires TL, the focus still modifies the attack).

hahaha, if only it were just a ship getting a focus token, then yes. Something would be going very wrong...

If I understand you correctly, these people are playing it wrong. A stressed jump master is not able to use an Attani acquired focus to declare an attack, "spend" it (while still keeping it) to acquire TL, use that to fire the torpedo, then use the focus to modify it.

A stressed jump master can spend a focus on its attack to get a TL and either spend it now (without focus), or save it to fire a torpedo next turn.

If they save it to fire next turn, then the it is up to you to get out of it's torpedo range and arc, or kill it before it shoots. If you can do neither of those things, you've probably engaged poorly.