10 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

Soontir you can block and hit him. Fenn you gotta block him at Range 2 and pray to God his greens crap out cuz he still has a **** Focus token. Fenn may technically be easier to kill, but in reality he isn't. That extra Hull, Mindlink , his ability, and the title are all very good defensively, oh and he comes 3 points cheaper than Soontir and has his entire dial open so he's less predictable.

I'm not saying fenn is worse than soontir. Mostly just saying that fenn alone is not the reason soontir isn't played anymore.

1 minute ago, VanderLegion said:

I'm not saying fenn is worse than soontir. Mostly just saying that fenn alone is not the reason soontir isn't played anymore.

Aw okay ?? yeah I agree. Fenn isn't the reason why soontir isn't played.

4 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

I agree imperials could use more imperial-only upgrades. On the other hand, that probably does nothing to make them more powerful in the current meta unless those upgrades brnig them up to jumpmaster powerlevels, which is back to being a problem. As for making intensity imperial only, they're probably the faction with the worst options for actually using the card.

Hence why its frustrating the others have access to it... A big part of what makes the other factions work is the unique stuff they get: Attani, Mindlink, K4, R4, R2D2, Latts, Sabine, Unhinged, Rey, Boba, 4Lom, Zuckuss, etc. Give some of that to the Empire and we would probably be much closer to a balanced game state.

4 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

There was no massive drive to FIND paratanni or dengaroo right away because triple scouts were already dominating things as an OP squad. I'm well aware that really good squads can come up later, but they're frequently found before release on vassal unless there's ANOTHER OP squad found first (like deadeye scouts).

Like i said IMO most are actually found later: The Gambit, Palobtanni, Old Fennaroo, Kanan Biggs, Dashing Miranda, YYZZ Jess, just to name a few recent ones. Sabine was released in june 2016 but she got in the top 10 builds only in september...

4 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

It's 1 agility without the defensive boosts you get with ships like miranda (built in regen), norra (access to r2d2 droid, plus her ability), etc. Rebel nym can get c3po or r2d2 crew if you want. Scum scurrgs dont' even get that. If you shoot them, they WILL take damage.

Just like the Ghost and the Decimator with 0 agi... 10 hp in the current meta is worth a lot. When so many abilities bypass defense and so many fully moded multiple red dices are getting the norm, it's much better in my book than say 3 agi/4-5hp. There is a reason why the low hp/high agi Imperial ships struggle...

4 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

Becasue as I've repeatedly pointed out, the system opens were basically right after the nerf (2 of them were literally that weekend), worlds was a couple months later, but it took imperials a long time to get back on their feet and figure out how to actualy fly something different that palp + 2 ships. And there was a lot of people that just dropped imperials completely and switched to the OP scum stuff instead of even trying to find imperial options that worked. Similar to how whisper dispapeared from the meta overnight with the decloak nerf, despite the fact that she's *still really good*. It took her like a year or more to start showing back up. Even still, imperials made the cut at 2 of the 3 opens and at worlds. Not with a lot of lists, and definitely behind the others, but they were there. And again, there were quite a few imperials at day 2 of worlds as well.

And once again, they've been doing well in store championships since then. part of my problem with the major tournaments is that there haven't been any MORE of them since worlds. So we could pretend store champs dont exist and just go by worlds and the system opens (that are months old at this point), or we could actually look at how the meta is evolving since then. Once we hit gencon and other big tournaments, then we can start discussing if imperials are STILL suffering.

What's more significant, a tournament with many hundreds of the best players in the world or some local ones that mostly have between 10-30 average players? Skill level still matters even with an unbalanced game. A more skilled player is most likely to win vs an average one no matter what faction he chooses. It's when we have many good players of the same skill level facing each others that we can really evaluate what works the best. And i find it funny that people think skilled players dont have what it takes to properly evaluate the game materials. Especially when said players where the ones who tested the changes months before the FAQ.

Even taking into account the results since the world, there is still no imperial built in the top 10. Their results are not that great it seems...

4 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

As for the best ship in one fation being in the 6h position, it's PILOTS not ships. Quickdraw is the number 6 pilot, the TIE/Sf isn't the number 6 ship. The top 5 pilots are fenn, dengar, scout, asajj and tel. Nerf the jumpmaster, and quickdraw has the potential to jump to number 3. And the first rebel pilot is miranda at #8, so if you went by that alone, rebels are worse off than empire.

As far as actual ships, the TIE/SF is in the #4 spot, behindt he 3 scum ones. K-wing is #5. TIE Defender is #7, and TIE Fighter is #10, so they hardly have "1 ship in the top 10". They have 3, which is almost the definition of balanced (One third of 10 is 3 1/3, so 3-4 in the top 10 is as close as you can get). Rebels also have 3, though one is the attack shuttle, which is sort of a special case most of hte time it's not doing anything on it's own.

Doesnt matter if its ship/pilot or even upgrades if no performing builds can be made out of them. In the end of the day, it's your squad that wins you games, not individual material. Palp is not good enough to allow Imperials to be in the top 10. So are defenders. They were before the FAQ. Thats a major drop. The Imperial might have adapted by finding what works best within their own faction but its not enough for them to perform. And performing in the type of game that is Xwing is winning meaningful tournaments on a regular basis not just having some "ok" positioning here and there.

4 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

Some of us actually LIKE scum. The StarViper is my favorite ship int he game (so I'm quite glad it's getting a buff finally), and I played Star Wars galaxies as a freelancer pilot for years, which is where we got other ships from (scyk and kihraxz), so I enjoy getting to put those on the table as well (yay for those gettnig fixes too...). On the other hand, I've never flown paratanni, deadeye scouts, or dengar tel.

Just because YOU don't care about scum doesn't mean other people don't like them or want to fly them. As for seeing the same builds over and over again, how is that different from the other factions? How long was the imperial faction nothing but palp aces? Then commonwealth defenders or triple defenders? How long has dash/miranda been a thing?

Sorry maybe i should have been clearer here. In " most of us" i mean us the ones who are upset about the Imperial current state. I also added "i believe" because there is no way to know for sure. To my knowledge, no survey was made. It w ould be wrong of me to pretend to know for sure what most players (all factions combined) love in term of esthetics. I get the feeling that's why we (Imperials) mostly complain because we all have access to scums and we can just switch faction. I see no other reason why we would prefer not to. Maybe it could be related to limited finance but Xwing is not an overall expensive game and getting into scums doesnt require that big of an investment when you already have many upgrades from your current faction. Heck i already had some scum ships that were needed for the upgrades alone.

Thats all for the weekend, seeya on monday :-)

^ I'm digging this back-and-forth

1 minute ago, Rinzler in a Tie said:

^ I'm digging this back-and-forth

Yeah it's fun to have civilized discussions :-)

45 minutes ago, Thormind said:

Hence why its frustrating the others have access to it... A big part of what makes the other factions work is the unique stuuf they get: Attani, Mindlink , K4 , R4, R2D2 , Latts , Sabine , Unhinged, Rey , Boba , 4Lom , Zuckuss , etc. Give some of that to the Empire and we would probably much closer to a balanced game state.

The problem is who do you use it on for empire that it's actually better than existing EPT options? I definitely agree imperials could use more faction-specific upgrades compared to the other factions, I just don't think intensity really woul dhav ehelped them that much as one of them.

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Like i said IMO most are actually found later: The Gambit, Palobtanni, Old Fennaroo, Kanan Biggs , Dashing Miranda , YYZZ Jess , just to name a few recent ones. Sabine was released in june 2016 but she got in the top 10 builds only in september...

Palobtanni didn't really become a thing until manaroo was nerfed. Kanan Biggs has been a thing as long as the ghost has existed. Don't remember when old fennaroo came around, and have no idea what th egambit is. I didn't say every OP build comes about before release, but the truly OP ships usually see at least one really good build by then. Part of it might also depend on timing, the vassal league sees a lot fo play for spoiled ships before release, but is in the off-season atm.

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Just like the Ghost and the Decimator with 0 agi... 10 hp in the current meta is worth a lot. When so many abilities bypass defense and so many fully moded multiple red dices are getting the norm, it's much better in my book than say 3 agi/4-5hp. There is a reason why the low hp/high agi Imperial ships struggle...

The two most common ghost builds right now are kanan biggs, which means they aren't shooting at the ghost and they're shoting less dice at biggs, and hera/ahsoka, which is arcdodging most shots. They don't live forever because they're naturally tanky (nevermind that 6 health is usually going to be better than 1 agility when comparing to the scurrg). The most common deci builds right now are using Kylo to throw blinded pilots at people, so it's ALSO avoiding fire. The scurrg for scum has neither of those options. The rebel version could pair with biggs still.

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What's more significant, a tournament with many hundreds of the best players in the world or some local ones the mostly have between 10-30 mostly unknown players? Skill level still matter even with an unbalanced game. A more skilled player is most likely to win vs an average one no matter what faction he chooses. It's when we have many good players of the same skill level facing each other that we can really evaluate what works the best. And i find it funny that people think skilled players dont have what it takes to properly evaluate the game materials. Especially when said players where the ones who tested the changes months before the FAQ.

I'll point again to the whisper nerf. How long again did it take whisper to show back up in the meta after the decloak change? And it was relatively short timer period between the faq and worlds to be coming up with entirely new squads for the top players that practice hundreds of games with lists before worlds. Way easier to jump to the known really good/OP faction and come back after the major tournament to look at options.

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Even taking into account the results since the world, there is still no imperial built in the top 10. Their results are not that great it seems...

Doesnt matter if its ship/pilot or even upgrades if no performing builds can be made out of them. In the end of the day, it's your squad that wins you games, not individual material. Palp is not good enough to allow Imperials to be in the top 10. So are defenders. They were before the FAQ. Thats a major drop. The Imperial might have adapted by finding what works best within their own faction but its not enough for them to perform. And performing in the type of game that is Xwing is winning tournament on a regular basis not just having some "ok" positioning here and there.

If you set meta-wing so show only store championships and look romt he start of store champ season until now and look at ranks after the cut, imperials have 2 lists in the top 10 archetypes. Rebels have 1, scum have the rest (but we alreayd know they need a nerf). If you look at all tournament types (ranks after the cut), imps have the same 2 archetypes, but one jumps up to #5.

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Sorry maybe i should have been clearer here. In " most of us" i mean us the ones who are upset about the Imperial current state. I also added "i believe" because there is no way to know for sure. To my knowledge, no survey was made. It w ould be wrong of me to pretend to know for sure what most players (all factions combined) love in term of esthetics. I get the feeling that's why we (Imperials) mostly complain because we all have access to scums and we can just switch faction. I see no other reason why we would prefer not to. Maybe it could be related to limited finance but Xwing is not an overall expensive game and getting into scums doesnt require that big of an investment when you already have many upgrades from your current faction. Heck i already had some scum ships that were needed for the upgrades alone.

If you like imperials the best, then...fly imperials. I love scum, but I've been flying imperials for months (partly because I'm contrary and everyone saying they can't compete makes me want to prove them wrong) and have done very well with them.

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Thats all for the weekend, seeya on monday :-)

Have a good weekend

Edit: And just to reiterate, I absolutely think empire is behind scum overall, I just think the palp and x7 nerfs were absolutely needed, and the jumpmaster and mindlink STILL absolutely need nerfs, and I think empire will be fine once that happens. Sabine slammed bombs will still be a problem for the really low health aces, but other options will do well.

36 minutes ago, Thormind said:

Yeah it's fun to have civilized discussions :-)

But, but, internet debates can't be civilized! Need more insults!!!

1 hour ago, VanderLegion said:

Don't remember when old fennaroo came around, and have no idea what th egambit is.

Old Fenaroo was a pretty obvious list. Palp with 2 Aces was a dominant archetype back then so Manaroo 2 aces wasn't such a huge leap. Hell, I'm a mediocre list builder and it was the first thing I tried once Protectorates were released

I think it's safe to say Old Fenaroo existed from the beginning of wave 8.

3 hours ago, LordBlades said:

Old Fenaroo was a pretty obvious list. Palp with 2 Aces was a dominant archetype back then so Manaroo 2 aces wasn't such a huge leap. Hell, I'm a mediocre list builder and it was the first thing I tried once Protectorates were released

I think it's safe to say Old Fenaroo existed from the beginning of wave 8.

I thought that one didn't, but didn't remember for sure so didn't wanna make any claims