2 hours ago, The Inquisitor said:

Errataing points is in the abstract the best way to fix something because ultimately it is the points that is wrong. But FFG and other game companies rarely do this for the reason that it can invalidate a list someone brings to the table. Bad enough "hey, Manaroo works like this now" but at least you can still field the same list. Figuring out before (or halfway through!) a game an upgrade is illegal is worse ("yeah deadeye can't go on a big ship now"). But there's a whole other kettle of worms if you found out the points values weren't even right. Given that FFG has gone through absolute hoops to bring points adjustments in through the back door without actually changing points values (looking at you, chaardaran refit), I can't see it happening. Likewise changing upgrade bar or frame values seems unlikely, otherwise they could have dropped the phantom down to firepower 3 way back when it was a major issue.

Ultimately, I don't see much of a difference between them. Yes it sucks showing up with an illegal list that you thought was legal. Though it's not like an x-wing list would be difficult to change on the fly. And in this case you'd probably only be looking at shaving a few points off. And I'm sure TOs would be more than willing to accommodate a newb who got blindsided by an FAQ change.

At higher levels of play, everybody should be keeping up with the FAQ so nobody should be getting surprised there.

And as far as changing the cards goes. Changing a pilot ability is no different than changing a statline or an upgrade bar. It's all the same in terms of needing a reprint or not.

14 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Ultimately, I don't see much of a difference between them. Yes it sucks showing up with an illegal list that you thought was legal. Though it's not like an x-wing list would be difficult to change on the fly. And in this case you'd probably only be looking at shaving a few points off. And I'm sure TOs would be more than willing to accommodate a newb who got blindsided by an FAQ change.

At higher levels of play, everybody should be keeping up with the FAQ so nobody should be getting surprised there.

And as far as changing the cards goes. Changing a pilot ability is no different than changing a statline or an upgrade bar. It's all the same in terms of needing a reprint or not.

FFG sells X Wing as a business, and high levels of play while exciting don't actually support the business. The business is supported by continually bringing in new players, and an easily approachable store champ tournament is key. A new player who spent hours figuring out their build, who finds out it isn't legal minutes before the start of the tournament is a disaster. Not just having to remove Deadeye from their large ship type disaster, but potentially breaking their entire build. That happening with pilot cards for one of the most popular ships will mean this happens all the time especially with 2+ Jumpmaster builds being fairly common.

That is completely different than finding out at the tournament that you're playing your Defender x7 title card wrong, or that you actually have to keep Manaroo closer for the ability. The new player just needs to fly their perfectly legal build differently, as opposed to the new player having to come up with a new build in 5 minutes using only the cards they brought (which they probably only brought the cards necessary to fly their illegal build). If FFG's goal is to piss off new players just getting into the game, this is the easiest way to do it.

Do people really see tournament play as the primary driver of X-Wing sales? That may be true for some other games, but I seriously doubt that's the case with X-Wing. More likely than not, TIE figthers of all kinds and X-wings sell way, WAY more than Jumpmasters, if I had to guess, and the people buying these things don't necessarily worry about playing the game in some store event, let alone even bother reading the FAQ. Or following it.

All the more reason that any ship like the Jumpmaster, if it is as broken as it sounds, is a disaster. It never is going to hit sales volume enough for most people to notice, I think, except and only the people who really care about the very specific rules for competitive play. And for those people this Jumpmaster thing should come to an end, with an errata or whatever, rather than wringing wrists every day trying to come up with a list to beat it...when really all there is to do is take another Jumpmaster...

TLDR I agree with the Original Poster.

In the few store championships I have been to, the only people who only showed up with the cards for their specific list were the higher level players. Most other people just had the box they have their whole collection in. Many weren't even sure what they were going to play yet.

19 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

In the few store championships I have been to, the only people who only showed up with the cards for their specific list were the higher level players. Most other people just had the box they have their whole collection in. Many weren't even sure what they were going to play yet.

That's an odd bunch of Store Champs. I've never seen anyone turn up with a box to decide what to fly. Unless they plan on list tailoring...

In any case, FFG have clearly wrestled with the problem of overcosted ships and instead of issuing extended errata for all A-wings, for example, they just include a card we can use for points reduction. But jumpmasters present a problem, the core chassis is undercosted. You can't bring out a title that increases the points, you'd have to make it mandatory and that's not how X-wing upgrades work, not to mention people who buy just the JM5K box. An individual pilot like Dengar could be nerfed (indeed Manaroo already has been) but the basic ship is still just too cheap, there's nothing to take away, unless you start mucking with core stats or slots, both of which seem as bad as playing with the points. Or just leave jumpmasters be? Is the disease really worth the cure at this point?

Joe was talking about lower levels. And that's what I have been to. Not many people traveling to it. Mostly locals.

I personally would probably just bring my whole box even if I traveled to a championship. But then I am used to 40k and wmh tournaments where you lug around a big bag of models. My little xwing tackle box is easy to transport.

1 minute ago, The Inquisitor said:

In any case, FFG have clearly wrestled with the problem of overcosted ships and instead of issuing extended errata for all A-wings, for example, they just include a card we can use for points reduction. But jumpmasters present a problem, the core chassis is undercosted. You can't bring out a title that increases the points, you'd have to make it mandatory and that's not how X-wing upgrades work, not to mention people who buy just the JM5K box. An individual pilot like Dengar could be nerfed (indeed Manaroo already has been) but the basic ship is still just too cheap, there's nothing to take away, unless you start mucking with core stats or slots, both of which seem as bad as playing with the points. Or just leave jumpmasters be? Is the disease really worth the cure at this point?

Well,mif you really dont want to mess up lists, then changingnthe Stats would be easier. Cut thr barrel roll and one point of Agility?

Jumpmasters are hot right now, they get played more they win more because there are more of them on the field.

Last tournament i was in, (store championship) there were jump masters in 2nd and 4th. But there were Tie SF in first and 3rd... is the tie SF broken because it was in two winning lists in our tournament?

They are popular and good pilots are flying them so they are winning, do i personally feel they are broken? for me no, i don't even worry about them on the other side anymore they are beaten fairly easily.

11 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Well,mif you really dont want to mess up lists, then changingnthe Stats would be easier. Cut thr barrel roll and one point of Agility?

That's changing not just pilot cards, but CARDBOARD.

17 minutes ago, Icelom said:

Jumpmasters are hot right now, they get played more they win more because there are more of them on the field.

Last tournament i was in, (store championship) there were jump masters in 2nd and 4th. But there were Tie SF in first and 3rd... is the tie SF broken because it was in two winning lists in our tournament?

They are popular and good pilots are flying them so they are winning, do i personally feel they are broken? for me no, i don't even worry about them on the other side anymore they are beaten fairly easily.

Why is it, do you think, that they are so popular?

They're not exactly novel, they're more than a year old and two entire waves have come and gone since they launched.

Remove their PWT, and just use their printed arc

8 hours ago, Flaren48 said:

And you can still find two posts a day about interceptors as well XD

Only that the posts about Interceptor are asking for its fix...

4 hours ago, The Inquisitor said:

Errataing points is in the abstract the best way to fix something because ultimately it is the points that is wrong. But FFG and other game companies rarely do this for the reason that it can invalidate a list someone brings to the table. Bad enough "hey, Manaroo works like this now" but at least you can still field the same list. Figuring out before (or halfway through!) a game an upgrade is illegal is worse ("yeah deadeye can't go on a big ship now"). But there's a whole other kettle of worms if you found out the points values weren't even right. Given that FFG has gone through absolute hoops to bring points adjustments in through the back door without actually changing points values (looking at you, chaardaran refit), I can't see it happening. Likewise changing upgrade bar or frame values seems unlikely, otherwise they could have dropped the phantom down to firepower 3 way back when it was a major issue.

I do agree that game companies are usually very hesitant to change costs. However, there is a precedent on the part of FFG to do exactly this. Anyone who has played Netrunner remembers when their Most Wanted List came out - a list of cards that were so powerful/omnipresent that ffg decided they merited extra play restrictions - literally adding a cost to running them in your deck.

It's not a perfect correlation to ship pricing in x wing-it reduced a value known as influence that let you add cards from outside factions to your deck. But it is similar in that it only impacted deckbuilding (basically squadbuilding) and not actual gameplay.

The most important part about it was that it wasn't technically an eratta; it was an auxiliary list of the things that basically cost more, but only for tournament play. There was concern that it would be an extra bar to entry for casual players, but in practice, it didn't have that effect and made the game more welcoming by keeping out some of the more toxic deck archetypes (for a time, at least).

That's not saying that FFG will implement something similar for x wing, just that the precedent is there.

9 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

It needs fixing. You know why it needs fixing?

So please, for the love of Talos, stop denying it is. If it wasn't, would it be THE hot button topic FOR THIS LONG?

Pshaa. The C-ROC was also never meant to have a blue line.

Everything's fine here. We are fine here. How are you?

4 hours ago, Smutpedler said:

Sounds like witchcraft to me. Are these players from Dathomir?

I had no idea of what place you speak, but Google assisted me; I haven't proof, but they don't appear to have any likeness to those pictured within the descriptions. So, square one we are. However, I guess witches could cause you to see what they wanted you to see....so?

3 hours ago, Joe Censored said:

FFG sells X Wing as a business, and high levels of play while exciting don't actually support the business. The business is supported by continually bringing in new players, and an easily approachable store champ tournament is key. A new player who spent hours figuring out their build, who finds out it isn't legal minutes before the start of the tournament is a disaster. Not just having to remove Deadeye from their large ship type disaster, but potentially breaking their entire build. That happening with pilot cards for one of the most popular ships will mean this happens all the time especially with 2+ Jumpmaster builds being fairly common.

That is completely different than finding out at the tournament that you're playing your Defender x7 title card wrong, or that you actually have to keep Manaroo closer for the ability. The new player just needs to fly their perfectly legal build differently, as opposed to the new player having to come up with a new build in 5 minutes using only the cards they brought (which they probably only brought the cards necessary to fly their illegal build). If FFG's goal is to piss off new players just getting into the game, this is the easiest way to do it.

With a community that great … we helped people to build a complete new lists just with loans. I actually doubt that it will be a bad experience for the most part, quite the contrary it would make the community look even better. ;-)
Though it will be extra stress for TOs who now need to check each and every list before entering people into the tournament system, because changing a list during the first round would really suck.

11 hours ago, bageldrone said:

Soontir was pushed out by power creep (mostly scum). It looks like the jumpmaster is getting pushed out by bombers.

As a Soontir player (who has switched to scum aces) it is hard to agree with that. It is true that Manaroo as a support ship was a lot stronger than Palpatine, but the protectorate fighters with mindlink really don't have such a major advantage over Palp aces. They offered more firepower, but less survivability and a lot less arc dodging. Bombs being a pain for aces, Palp nerf and no strong Upsilon Shuttle is what really sealed the deal for Soontir. His flight style became invalid, because his support became invalid, not because the power creep imo. Actually Imperial aces are doing pretty fine against jumpmasters, well, outside of Dengar ;-)

6 hours ago, vaderizer said:

Any chance you have the full list of all competitors and their lists?

If hardly anyone shows up with a Rebel or Imperial list, seeing Scum in the winner's circle is not such a surprise.

You misunderstand the Archetype Ranking list that was posted. That isn't the Top 10 finishers from one particular tournament... that is an aggregated overall score for all archetypes across a multitude of tournaments over the past few months. So, on the whole, Jumpmasters are overwhelmingly over-represented in top finishing squads across a variety of metas at tournaments varying in size and seriousness.

While it may be true that Jumpmasters are also one of the more commonly flown ships right now, things that are heavily represented in the meta tend to define the meta for a reason. The best players often will fly whatever list they find to the most powerful, and many net-deckers will follow suit. Good, powerful lists are only underrepresented very briefly, until the word gets out. Consider Dengaroo. At its first Regionals debut, only its creator and three of hits mates were flying the list, yet it got Top 8, Top 4, and Champion. Two weeks later at Origins it got Runner-Up. After this, the list was omnipresent in subsequent tournaments, and even by Gencon a mere month and half later it had become one of the most popular list archetypes that was present. It does not take long for the best meta ships to quickly get bandwagoned and become one of the more popular and common ships in tournaments.

While it's not true to say that ship popularity equates with meta powerlevel, they are often strongly correlated for the right sorts of reasons.

8 hours ago, Tbetts94 said:

Totally wrong. Jumpmaster is still broken. I hardly ever played the Jumpmaster and never played the Worlds List before and took it to Top 4 of a 45 person Store Champ, you know who I lost to in the Top 4? Joe Desmond who was also running Dengar. That tourney was probably the easiest one I've ever been too. The Jumpmaster seriously needs to be fixed.

Actually, what you have is an opinion, just like I do. I never said the Jumpmaster isn't strong, too strong even. Broken though? Not anymore. It has been largely dealt with. I'd agree it could have been dealt with a bit harder, but there you go.

The ListJuggler link tells us that. How about going back a few years and see how many Han/Rookie/Rookie lists there were for example. Was it broken? No. Was it frequently played and doing very well? Yes. Did it suit the playstyle of the top players? Yes.

RoV

Since when is one totally broken thing okay because other stuff was broken in the past?

Again, look at what good never having a balanced game has done for 40k. It's had a bunch of people quit, since they know all their old purchases (and old means 3 months or more ago) are made useless. Who wants to play that? Well, a lot of people. But a lot more don't.

Balanced games, or those that come close, are simply better games. I'd dare say they stick around longer too. The Jumpmaster is the current topic at hand, and I agree that 'nothing to see here, everything is totally fine or the great white robed developers will fix it so don't worry,"...hyperbole I know...but still not the answer.

14 minutes ago, Rat of Vengence said:

Actually, what you have is an opinion, just like I do. I never said the Jumpmaster isn't strong, too strong even. Broken though? Not anymore. It has been largely dealt with. I'd agree it could have been dealt with a bit harder, but there you go.

The ListJuggler link tells us that. How about going back a few years and see how many Han/Rookie/Rookie lists there were for example. Was it broken? No. Was it frequently played and doing very well? Yes. Did it suit the playstyle of the top players? Yes.

RoV

Han was never broken. What Han was, was a hard counter to something that WAS broken, that being pre-nerf phantom.

Phantoms killed everything except Han, and han killed phantoms if there wasnt enough else to kill him first.

But in this meta, the best ship to kill a jumpmaster is another jumpmaster.

19 hours ago, Rat of Vengence said:

Is it very strong? Yes.

Is it broken? Not anymore. Absolutely.

FTFY.

I legitimately do not understand how anyone who's played longer than a couple of months can say with a straight face that the Jump isn't the most broken ship in the game's history.

We have had more than a year of continuous, uninterrupted Jumpmaster dominance. FFG have nerfed a Jumpmaster list every few months by targeting the upgrades around it, and each and every time the players have found another way to break the ship. Wolfpack became Dengaroo became Parattanni became Dengar + Tel. No doubt FFG will nerf K4 Security Droid next to try and knock out Dengar + Tel and then somehow be surprised when Dengar + Fenn + Inaldra happily takes over.

The ship is difficult to kill, it's got easily the best dial in the game, it can reposition, and it's got every upgrade slot it could ever ask for. You want a gunship, the Jumpmaster is the best ship for the job. You want a support ship, the Jumpmaster is the best ship for the job. You want a blocker, the Jumpmaster is the best ship for the job. You want a bomber, the Jumpmaster is about to become the best ship for the job. It can even do any 2 of those roles at the same time.

The only options left at this point are the nuclear ones. Either FFG bans the entire ship from competitive play, or they bite the bullet and errata the things that are actually breaking the ship: it's dial, stats, action bar, and upgrade bar. Nothing else is going to break the cycle that has turned this game into Jumpaster: The Miniatures Game.

Then perhaps I'm just that good at killing them. Or people are claiming the sky is falling. Your call

You'll forgive me if I trust over a year of tournament results more than your word, I hope.