1 minute ago, SabineKey said:

For your second point, how so?

To me it's the difference if you're interested in thinking about an actual solution to make the game more balanced, or if you want to vent some frustration. Both are valid, but one is more helpful than the other.

Simply declaring Sabine+Bombs to be the only problem could lead to more thoughtless corrections as we've seen from FFG before. Figuring out which factors in this vast network of interactions are part of the problem allows them/us to see how the Empire could be made into a competitive faction again, withouth powercreep for a change...

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

To me it's the difference if you're interested in thinking about an actual solution to make the game more balanced, or if you want to vent some frustration. Both are valid, but one is more helpful than the other.

Simply declaring Sabine+Bombs to be the only problem could lead to more thoughtless corrections as we've seen from FFG before. Figuring out which factors in this vast network of interactions are part of the problem allows them/us to see how the Empire could be made into a competitive faction again, withouth powercreep for a change...

Fair enough.

42 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

To me it's the difference if you're interested in thinking about an actual solution to make the game more balanced, or if you want to vent some frustration. Both are valid, but one is more helpful than the other.

Simply declaring Sabine+Bombs to be the only problem could lead to more thoughtless corrections as we've seen from FFG before. Figuring out which factors in this vast network of interactions are part of the problem allows them/us to see how the Empire could be made into a competitive faction again, withouth powercreep for a change...

Great thoughts.

I think this might be a grand investigation that should have been pondered towards the end of last year by the powers that be at FFG.

It seems to me when FAQ 4.3.0 is dovetailed and analyzed with local experience and national tournament results then to now, it illuminates a strong and statistically valid possibility that specific parts of the errata caused more negative impacts to game balance than it solved. I admit this might be a somewhat biased view, but I really have tried to be as objective as possible.

From my experience it's not just K-wings keeping aces out of the game. It's also Fenn Rau. He's just a better overall ace in the current meta than what Imperials can come up with. We've all seen the ridiculous initiative bidding Old Fennaroo lists are beginning to have: two of those lists in the Top 16 came in at only 96 pts! Imperial lists have trouble going to similar initiative bids and even if they do, Scum lists can go even lower because of how undercosted Manaroo is. Not to mention Old Fennaroo has all the tools to wreck Imperial aces: Fenn's infinite pockets at PS9 with an init bid, Old T's token stripping, and the best blocker in the game in the form of Manaroo. I honestly think Fenn Rau is just as much to blame for the lack of Soontir Fel as bombing K-wings are.

12 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

From my experience it's not just K-wings keeping aces out of the game. It's also Fenn Rau. He's just a better overall ace in the current meta than what Imperials can come up with. We've all seen the ridiculous initiative bidding Old Fennaroo lists are beginning to have: two of those lists in the Top 16 came in at only 96 pts! Imperial lists have trouble going to similar initiative bids and even if they do, Scum lists can go even lower because of how undercosted Manaroo is. Not to mention Old Fennaroo has all the tools to wreck Imperial aces: Fenn's infinite pockets at PS9 with an init bid, Old T's token stripping, and the best blocker in the game in the form of Manaroo. I honestly think Fenn Rau is just as much to blame for the lack of Soontir Fel as bombing K-wings are.

That's possible, they've never really existed in the same timeframe as aces were gone before Fenn Rau arrived. I don't think it's really been tested.

On 5/8/2017 at 9:08 PM, SabineKey said:

It is still a solid ship, but upper level play is filled with things that take advantage of their new weaknesses. Stress in particular is everywhere, primary forms being Ventress and the Stresshog. With those things so prevalent, x7's can't really get good footing, and there is no sign of Stress going down in power.

Maybewe will get stress relief upgrade card one day here. Someone was suggesting "Ryll" to get one stress off.

9 minutes ago, SOTL said:

That's possible, they've never really existed in the same timeframe as aces were gone before Fenn Rau arrived. I don't think it's really been tested.

It's definitely a factor. Rau is stupid tanky at R1 and Teroch punishes you for getting too close, too. The "normal" solution for dealing with Aces is to box them in or block them and unload at R1 to push damage through, but that approach actually HURTS against Protectorates. R1 is harmful, R3 means autothrusters, so you have to catch a PS9 ship that has a free focus token at range 2 of multiple targets, probably more than once a match, who throws 5 dice back if you screw up even a little bit.

It's a little much. Rau is cheaper or as cheap as other top Imperial aces and has several advantages over them.

That is not an initiative bid, that is just all the points you need. ;-)
Sure, you can spice it up with EM, protons/plasmas, chips and cargo chutes or something like that. But those are marginal updates. And shooting first and moving first helps with creating blocks in mirror matches.

About Fenn Rau. I would assume everyone else did the same tests in his local meta as I did and came to the conclusion that Old Man Rau annihilates Imperial Aces. It certainly did help as well that Commonwealth Defenders had a very bad experience against that list as well, because Palp died so freaking early, especially when you took the luxury of one torpedo on Manaroo. And with a minimum of 94 points for a functioning Old Man Rau list, you never have to be scared of Soontir either, the Imperial Aces lists have a pretty hard time to go that low in points, so an Init bet can always be taken by that scum list if the needs arise.

Was one of my surprised that there were so few Old Man Rau lists at worlds in 2016 and so many in 2017.

Of course we have Electronic Baffle always...

27 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

From my experience it's not just K-wings keeping aces out of the game. It's also Fenn Rau. He's just a better overall ace in the current meta than what Imperials can come up with. We've all seen the ridiculous initiative bidding Old Fennaroo lists are beginning to have: two of those lists in the Top 16 came in at only 96 pts! Imperial lists have trouble going to similar initiative bids and even if they do, Scum lists can go even lower because of how undercosted Manaroo is. Not to mention Old Fennaroo has all the tools to wreck Imperial aces: Fenn's infinite pockets at PS9 with an init bid, Old T's token stripping, and the best blocker in the game in the form of Manaroo. I honestly think Fenn Rau is just as much to blame for the lack of Soontir Fel as bombing K-wings are.

It's a strong argument but imps definitely have the tools to handle him. Carnor/OL/Vader for instance.

13 minutes ago, SOTL said:

That's possible, they've never really existed in the same timeframe as aces were gone before Fenn Rau arrived. I don't think it's really been tested.

That's true. I suppose it's a difference between what pushed Imp aces out of the game originally vs. what's keeping them out currently. Originally I'd say it was actually x7 Defenders. The Palp Aces/Palp Defenders matchup always favored Palp Defenders. Neither the aces nor the Defenders could kill each other, but they could kill each other's shuttles, and since the Defenders were worth more points they always won on time. Not to mention that x7 Defenders nearly as tanky but had more consistent offense than traditional aces. Wave 9 was the real nail in the coffin though as the threat of Asajj and BMST began scaring aces players away and the increasing popularity of K-wing bombers made high health Defenders a better option than aces. Now you would think the x7 nerf would make aces more appealing again, but not so. The x7 nerf (along with the removal of Dengaroo) also made stress control come back with a vengeance. While x7s are no longer a threat to aces, the threat of K-wing bombers (particularly Super Miranda), the huge number of stress control options that Rebels and Scum have, and now the emergence of Mindlinked Old Fennaroo together make flying aces a highly risky prospect. That's my thought anyway.

10 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

About Fenn Rau. I would assume everyone else did the same tests in his local meta as I did and came to the conclusion that Old Man Rau annihilates Imperial Aces. It certainly did help as well that Commonwealth Defenders had a very bad experience against that list as well, because Palp died so freaking early, especially when you took the luxury of one torpedo on Manaroo. And with a minimum of 94 points for a functioning Old Man Rau list, you never have to be scared of Soontir either, the Imperial Aces lists have a pretty hard time to go that low in points, so an Init bet can always be taken by that scum list if the needs arise.

Yes, Old Fennaroo should beat Imp aces 90% of the time. The only exception I can think of is Vader since he can easily jump to PS10/11. It really is crazy how efficient Old Fennaroo is. I'd say you can go even lower than 94 pts. For a minimally functioning Old Fennaroo list, you can go all the way down to 90 pts (putting only Mindlink on Manaroo). That's insane. Imperial lists can't compete with that.

38 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

From my experience it's not just K-wings keeping aces out of the game. It's also Fenn Rau. He's just a better overall ace in the current meta than what Imperials can come up with. We've all seen the ridiculous initiative bidding Old Fennaroo lists are beginning to have: two of those lists in the Top 16 came in at only 96 pts! Imperial lists have trouble going to similar initiative bids and even if they do, Scum lists can go even lower because of how undercosted Manaroo is. Not to mention Old Fennaroo has all the tools to wreck Imperial aces: Fenn's infinite pockets at PS9 with an init bid, Old T's token stripping, and the best blocker in the game in the form of Manaroo. I honestly think Fenn Rau is just as much to blame for the lack of Soontir Fel as bombing K-wings are.

The protectorates are also incorrectly costed. They're usually 1 point too few. They all should be 1 point more.

Nerf protectorates!

54 minutes ago, Zazaa said:

Maybewe will get stress relief upgrade card one day here. Someone was suggesting "Ryll" to get one stress off.

I feel we have a solid stress relief upgrade card already in the form of Inspiring Recruit. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the Imps crew carriers are up to the task of keeping up with ships like Defenders to peal off the stress. Even a cheap TIE Shuttle could get burned down too fast, and the defenders are potential back to square one.

Heh, another reason why I wish the /sf had a crew slot.

51 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It's a strong argument but imps definitely have the tools to handle him. Carnor/OL/Vader for instance.

Carnor explodes at range 1 against Fenn Rau, before he even can shoot. Target lock + 5 dice are 3.75 hits and teroch steals Carneros tokens while at it.

OL is great, but not a tool to handle Fenn Rau. 4 Defense dice vs 3 attack dice modified by a focus ~1.6 damage, without the focus even just 1. Meanwhile Rau shoots first and his 5 nacked dice do 01.5/0.9 damage. So Rau is winning this fight at range one even in a duel situation, and if you add extra fire from other ships which are not suppressed by OLs TL, the thing pops super fast, while Fenn Rau kann use his mods to survive fire from other targets. In R3 and R2 OL should actually win a duel and OL is even 4 point cheaper than Old Teroch. So that one is clearly still great.

BTW, one protectorate generics are definitely not undercost, there is gap between them and the named pilots.

And Vader? Well can certainly try to arc dodge Rau and Teroch, but he has trouble with even a 2 Attack Dice turret from Manaroo, though either his defense or his offence or arc dodging is lacking (Lone Wolf / Predator / VI-Adaptability) and he is a lot more expensive than those Protectorat Fighters. Though fight for even PS11 Vader. If only he could have some autothrusters.

Yeah, I have no clue why they did not gave the SF a crew slot. Or actually I have an idea, as the SF is a two seater with a pilot and a gunner and the rear arc represents that gunner. Still, crew would have been great, most likely for the exact same costs.

Jax has issues against bombs and Asajj. OL is solid but he's less useful against Fenn Rau than you think. At least from my experience taking OL to Worlds. If I have OL + at least one other ship left on the board, I can take on Fenn Rau if position OL well enough. In a 1v1 though? Fenn Rau wins every time. He can arc dodge OL and even when OL has him TLed, 5 unmodified dice can kill OL. One of my losses at Worlds was partially due to OL's failure at taking on Fenn Rau. I lined up the perfect range 2 shot to kill Fenn, only for my opponent to roll all natural Evades. Later, his Fenn got a good unmodified range 1 attack on OL and killed him. So no, I don't think OL is the answer either. He's OK at dealing with Fenn Rau early on, but in a 1v1 he can't win.

Vader is interesting in that he has the health to survive a Cluster Mine drop and the PS to arc dodge Fenn Rau. His main counters, stress and turrets, are still in the meta though.

59 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

I feel we have a solid stress relief upgrade card already in the form of Inspiring Recruit. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the Imps crew carriers are up to the task of keeping up with ships like Defenders to peal off the stress. Even a cheap TIE Shuttle could get burned down too fast, and the defenders are potential back to square one.

Heh, another reason why I wish the /sf had a crew slot.

This .

It is the only X-Wing game ship in a SW movie that shows it having a pilot and a crew member (used by stars of the movie), that doesn't actually have a crew slot in the game. The designers are already pushing Imp players to play with 'Rebel like' ships at the same time they give Rebels better Imperial ships (Stolen TIE) to play with in these latest waves, well? Come on then. Crew on ships that have crew in movies is certainly a Rebel thing, heck just a actual SW thing. Maybe that would have kept the Empire a bit more competitive in lieu of the latest "oh, here we'll fix your little Defender ship so you can play with the Scummies a little"....and then later, "oh, now we don't like you playing so well against the Scummies, so let's break it" crap.

.....sorry, it's almost 5:00.

I'll be playing Scum later anyway, I don't know why I care.

8 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

This .

It is the only X-Wing game ship in a SW movie that shows it having a pilot and a crew member (used by stars of the movie), that doesn't actually have a crew slot in the game. The designers are already pushing Imp players to play with 'Rebel like' ships at the same time they give Rebels better Imperial ships (Stolen TIE) to play with in these latest waves, well? Come on then. Crew on ships that have crew in movies is certainly a Rebel thing, heck just a actual SW thing. Maybe that would have kept the Empire a bit more competitive in lieu of the latest "oh, here we'll fix your little Defender ship so you can play with the Scummies a little"....and then later, "oh, now we don't like you playing so well against the Scummies, so let's break it" crap.

.....sorry, it's almost 5:00.

I'll be playing Scum later anyway, I don't know why I care.

There is also extra details about the Striker that says it should have a crew and bomb slot, so Imps gettin' shafted on slots all over.

Just for reference, the arc-170 has a tail-gunner, pilot and co-pilot. It has a crew of three and gets only 1 crew slot. Meanwhile the TIE/SF has only the gunner and pilot seats. I can see the angle from which they coming. I still don't think it was the correct decision, especially when that stupid rebel TIE fighter gets a crew slot without even having a crew station outside of the pilot seat.

1 minute ago, SEApocalypse said:

Just for reference, the arc-170 has a tail-gunner, pilot and co-pilot. It has a crew of three and gets only 1 crew slot. Meanwhile the TIE/SF has only the gunner and pilot seats. I can see the angle from which they coming. I still don't think it was the correct decision, especially when that stupid rebel TIE fighter gets a crew slot without even having a crew station outside of the pilot seat.

I know crew slots can be finicky, but still...