1 hour ago, Tlfj200 said:

I think you're right about th needing escalating the power of bumping.

separately - I think you're underestimating how scary that manaroo is against other mindlink.

ODJ is tailored to destroy other mindlink, and a large reason is manaroo (though we discovered that after the fact, so it was not obvious).

I certainly respect it after seeing it in action and losing to it twice in a row at World's including you;), and it's fair that I don't have experience seeing the specific matchup you're referring to, but I was thinking more generally.

1 minute ago, AlexW said:

I certainly respect it after seeing it in action and losing to it twice in a row at World's including you;), and it's fair that I don't have experience seeing the specific matchup you're referring to, but I was thinking more generally.

Oh, $*~% - THAT Alex! Hey!!

I understand what you mean about mindlink generally, but I found that while mindlink sometimes doesn't mind the bump, but it usually does care 'where it is,' so a bump that controls their arc or positioning can really pressure a mindlink list (again, this discovery was more an after-the-fact discovery after making the list choices).

It works just as well in reverse on ODJ - I happened to play a mirror while here in Russia, and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the other manaroo - I didn't even want to breath in its general direction.

All of this said, were not even sure ODJ survives the introduction of wave 11, so maybe a bulk of this is moot (until the next list arises to abuse intel agent).

What is ODJ?

I'm not sure if this idea is competitive, but I'm excited to try pairing up a Bumpmaster with something that can drop bombs, once the Havoc shows up. The Intel Agent, blocking, and Ion Projector would all contribute to making it easier to land bombs. It's a pretty big middle finger to aces.

2 minutes ago, EdgeOfDreams said:

What is ODJ?

I'm not sure if this idea is competitive, but I'm excited to try pairing up a Bumpmaster with something that can drop bombs, once the Havoc shows up. The Intel Agent, blocking, and Ion Projector would all contribute to making it easier to land bombs. It's a pretty big middle finger to aces.

Old Duncan's Johnson (96)

Fenn Rau (32) - Protectorate Starfighter
Attanni Mindlink (1), Concord Dawn Protector (1), Autothrusters (2)

Old Teroch (30) - Protectorate Starfighter
Attanni Mindlink (1), Concord Dawn Protector (1), Autothrusters (2)

Manaroo (34) - JumpMaster 5000
Attanni Mindlink (1), Intelligence Agent (1), R4 Agromech (2), Rigged Cargo Chute (1), Ion Projector (2)

21 hours ago, Elavion said:

Biggs+thingys: Are you seriously going to put that blinded on Biggs? I mean, he does have a 3-primary, but he's not exactly a death machine. And by the time biggs goes down your kylo-carrier or crit-generators are probably already in a pretty bad shape.

See, here is where you "get bad/cheap opponents"-better so you can Injured Pilot him.

I don't know if it's good, but I've been playing with ideas of an Intel Agent TIE Shuttle combined with Ryad and TIE/D Vessery. Either the Shuttle or Ryad can act as very accurate blockers, then the Tractor Beam rolls a target off the block and everything lays into it.

You can do a similar thing much better with an Upsilon, but the third ship is pretty sketchy. Strikers are probably the right choice in that case to make the most use of Intel with the Adaptive Ailerons.

Every time I've tested builds with the Oopsi(5 or 6 times now) it seems like a great ship. I don't normally play Imperials, what is it that I am missing about the Upsilon that has kept it from being in top lists?

21 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

I don't know if it's good, but I've been playing with ideas of an Intel Agent TIE Shuttle combined with Ryad and TIE/D Vessery. Either the Shuttle or Ryad can act as very accurate blockers, then the Tractor Beam rolls a target off the block and everything lays into it.

You can do a similar thing much better with an Upsilon, but the third ship is pretty sketchy. Strikers are probably the right choice in that case to make the most use of Intel with the Adaptive Ailerons.

I don't need to convince you off all people, but tractor defenders are about to be amazing with all the 1 agility alpha strikes just begging to be put on rocks coming soon too. I played against almost exactly that, but fleet officer on the shuttle whole playtesting some deadeye scurrgs.

Granted the scurrgs tabled it, but neither of us really knew what we were doing, the potential is there for sure.

Okay, probably dumb, but what about a TIE phantom as a Kylo cruiser? Maybe just the 25 pointer, maybe with Stygium? That would be 30 points even. Probably better than the TIE shuttle, but not sure if it is worth-the-points better.

47 minutes ago, Brunas said:

I don't need to convince you off all people, but tractor defenders are about to be amazing with all the 1 agility alpha strikes just begging to be put on rocks coming soon too. I played against almost exactly that, but fleet officer on the shuttle whole playtesting some deadeye scurrgs.

Granted the scurrgs tabled it, but neither of us really knew what we were doing, the potential is there for sure.

Yeah, I'm looking real hard at Tractor TIE/Ds again. Even just against the dumb Biggs stuff, tossing him out of range of a target to open up on somebody else (or just deny use of Selflessness to protect him) does a lot to neuter the Biggs fortress even if FFG leaves it intact.

1 hour ago, Burius1981 said:

Every time I've tested builds with the Oopsi(5 or 6 times now) it seems like a great ship. I don't normally play Imperials, what is it that I am missing about the Upsilon that has kept it from being in top lists?

...its dial. If only FFG's Scum design team worked on that ship, theeeen we'd be talking a meta ship.

I've had a lot of success with the Upsilon but yeah it's slightly too clumsy to be too tier I think. I love the heck out of it and am still trying builds, but yeah, it's hard when stuff gets behind you

1 hour ago, Burius1981 said:

Every time I've tested builds with the Oopsi(5 or 6 times now) it seems like a great ship. I don't normally play Imperials, what is it that I am missing about the Upsilon that has kept it from being in top lists?

It's a balancing act to make the points worth it on the ship. It's not overcosted, but when you start loading points on it it has to contribute to the fight with that 4 dice attack. If it had a rear arc you'd see it everywhere because you'd get the value out of it in the fight. The perfect combo just hasn't been found.

18 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

...its dial. If only FFG's Scum design team worked on that ship, theeeen we'd be talking a meta ship.

What would you change on the dial to make it meta? Don't say green/white kturn/sloops/trolls.

I've played a fair bit with the YV-666 and the HWK. The Oopsie's dial doesn't bother me that much. Even if they get behind it, so what? Chase it and I'll have my other ship(s) chase you while getting a coordinated free action. If you don't chase it I'll still coordinate actions while I turn it around.

A bunch of guys locally tried to find a way to make the U-Wing work, nobody figured that one out and they have abandoned it. I never saw that sort of testing with the Upsilon in my area. A couple of newish players put it on the board a handful of times, lost matches, and then everyone told me it was bad don't bother.

1 hour ago, Brunas said:

I don't need to convince you off all people, but tractor defenders are about to be amazing with all the 1 agility alpha strikes just begging to be put on rocks coming soon too. I played against almost exactly that, but fleet officer on the shuttle whole playtesting some deadeye scurrgs.

Granted the scurrgs tabled it, but neither of us really knew what we were doing, the potential is there for sure.

Did you see the list at PBKW with Vessery and Rexler TIE/D TB and a support Tie Shuttle with Fleet Officer and Ops Spec? That was a nasty list. I beat him with a lucky crit taking out the shuttle early and then blocking Rexler repeatedly while Fenn shot him up. When they did fire, they hurt like hell.

15 minutes ago, Burius1981 said:

What would you change on the dial to make it meta? Don't say green/white kturn/sloops/trolls.

I've played a fair bit with the YV-666 and the HWK. The Oopsie's dial doesn't bother me that much. Even if they get behind it, so what? Chase it and I'll have my other ship(s) chase you while getting a coordinated free action. If you don't chase it I'll still coordinate actions while I turn it around.

A bunch of guys locally tried to find a way to make the U-Wing work, nobody figured that one out and they have abandoned it. I never saw that sort of testing with the Upsilon in my area. A couple of newish players put it on the board a handful of times, lost matches, and then everyone told me it was bad don't bother.

The YV has a 180 arc and the HWK has a turret. HUGE difference. The lack of a K-turn on a forward firing arc only ship is what hurts it. It's a shuttle so of course it's not meant to be dogfighting or anything, but paying 30 pts base price + whatever upgrades you're going to throw on it and suddenly you have a ship that's worth more than 1/3 of your squad points and barely contributes to the fight. With the Palp Shuttle it was at least cheap (29 pts) and offered an enormous amount of utility by just being on the board (Palpatine). The Upsilon just hasn't found that right crew or combo to justify having it on the board for its price.

25 minutes ago, Burius1981 said:

What would you change on the dial to make it meta? Don't say green/white kturn/sloops/trolls.

A single red K-Turn of any speed would do the trick. Alternatively, better access to a repositioning action (e.g. Expert Handling without the stress or a cheaper boost card) could be enough.

2 hours ago, Burius1981 said:

Did you see the list at PBKW with Vessery and Rexler TIE/D TB and a support Tie Shuttle with Fleet Officer and Ops Spec? That was a nasty list. I beat him with a lucky crit taking out the shuttle early and then blocking Rexler repeatedly while Fenn shot him up. When they did fire, they hurt like hell.

I got wrecked by that list at PBKW. He threw Norra on the rocks when she had range one shots and lit her up while she had zero agility. It was a good list.

6 hours ago, Burius1981 said:

What would you change on the dial to make it meta? Don't say green/white kturn/sloops/trolls.

I've played a fair bit with the YV-666 and the HWK. The Oopsie's dial doesn't bother me that much. Even if they get behind it, so what? Chase it and I'll have my other ship(s) chase you while getting a coordinated free action. If you don't chase it I'll still coordinate actions while I turn it around.

A bunch of guys locally tried to find a way to make the U-Wing work, nobody figured that one out and they have abandoned it. I never saw that sort of testing with the Upsilon in my area. A couple of newish players put it on the board a handful of times, lost matches, and then everyone told me it was bad don't bother.

5 hours ago, defkhan1 said:

The YV has a 180 arc and the HWK has a turret. HUGE difference. The lack of a K-turn on a forward firing arc only ship is what hurts it. It's a shuttle so of course it's not meant to be dogfighting or anything, but paying 30 pts base price + whatever upgrades you're going to throw on it and suddenly you have a ship that's worth more than 1/3 of your squad points and barely contributes to the fight. With the Palp Shuttle it was at least cheap (29 pts) and offered an enormous amount of utility by just being on the board (Palpatine). The Upsilon just hasn't found that right crew or combo to justify having it on the board for its price.

Yes, either a turret or 180 dog firing arc or a K-turn or sloop....they (FFG) figured military shuttles should fly like freighters.

...oh wait, if they were freighters, they could sloop like fighters.

*salt added to taste ?

On 6/29/2017 at 5:02 PM, Elavion said:

First of all, the diagram you created shows the perfect lineup for the jumpmaster- against a player who understands the threat, this is borderline impossible to achieve. In most cases you bring it down to a 50-50- bumpmaster can either block a majority of the ship's dial or one or two specific maneuvers that would get past the "optimal" blocking move.

Sorry, I don't mean to keep harping on this. But here's some pics of the Games and Stuff Store Champs I was sent, to demonstrate how often these set ups happen:

Rey that's completely done:

Note that even if she wasn't double ioned, she still can't ever move again

Poor Miranda.

Look, one more time: I'm not saying bumpmaster is bad; quite the opposite, but in my opinion he's not broken. Yes, he can lock a ship down. You ARE sacrificing a solid chunk of points for the ability though, and setting up those scenarios is possible, but it's far from guaranteed and definitely not easy against a skilled opponent.

If you think bumpmasters are so strong, just take one to a tournament or two. Once you understand all the quirks of the bumping game you'll see why it isn't as insane as it looks on paper. Or you will go undefeated and prove me wrong- it's a win/win for you, either you learn something new or win some awesome prizes and get to put me in my place

P.S. And since we're exchanging evidence, here's a video of a bumpmaster user getting rekt despite his green dice being so hot they're practically red. (shoutout to TSG)

2 hours ago, Elavion said:

Look, one more time: I'm not saying bumpmaster is bad; quite the opposite, but in my opinion he's not broken. Yes, he can lock a ship down. You ARE sacrificing a solid chunk of points for the ability though, and setting up those scenarios is possible, but it's far from guaranteed and definitely not easy against a skilled opponent.

If you think bumpmasters are so strong, just take one to a tournament or two. Once you understand all the quirks of the bumping game you'll see why it isn't as insane as it looks on paper. Or you will go undefeated and prove me wrong- it's a win/win for you, either you learn something new or win some awesome prizes and get to put me in my place

This is going to sound more braggy than I intend, but I'm posing it as a problem because my record with ODJ is well over 30 wins and 1 loss. At tournaments, about 16-1, and two final salvos at the 4-0 table if you want to count those too.

Of the people in this thread saying bumpmaster manaroo is dumb, I am by far the worst of them. Hell, two of them made top 16 at worlds with it. (Well, the above pictures are from Duncan, he's too smart to post on the forums with us mere mortals)

One you figure out how to set the Intel jump "correctly", you're able to create these single player scenarios almost every game. We have the reps and results to prove that. The question isn't if you can, it's honestly if it's bad for the game at this point.

11 minutes ago, Brunas said:

One you figure out how to set the Intel jump "correctly", you're able to create these single player scenarios almost every game. We have the reps and results to prove that. The question isn't if you can, it's honestly if it's bad for the game at this point.

Basically, the skill resides in getting manaroo to that point without her dying or taking too much damage. Afterwards, the opponent basically needs other ships to keep pressure on roo to stop it - the bump ship is stuck forever.

2 hours ago, Elavion said:

If you think bumpmasters are so strong, just take one to a tournament or two. Once you understand all the quirks of the bumping game you'll see why it isn't as insane as it looks on paper. Or you will go undefeated and prove me wrong- it's a win/win for you, either you learn something new or win some awesome prizes and get to put me in my place

Honestly , we have and are, and we stand by it. Also - see marcel's worlds top 16 triple jump master list: he actually put intel agent on all three jumps.

He just happened to hit Justin (the ultimate winner), and he even beat Justin in Swiss, iirc.

The only reason we brought this up at all was that we felt it *wasn't* actually that obvious, and we also felt this may ultimately be abusive.

As Paul Heaver has said before - the only really sacred information in X-Wing are the dials - so maybe it wasn't a good idea to introduce something like intel agent (or, again, maybe it's just a jump master problem).

As for whether this all will become moot in our wave 11 another matter...

...I, for one, welcome our deadeye overlords.

Quadjumper, Spacetug Tractor Array, intel agent is a hard counter to Bumpmasters. Two of those are approximately the same price as a single bumpmaster. PS3 on the bumpmasters is just too high. Also stress, because stress shuts down the Bumpmaster barrel roll. Engage so they aren't turning left and the bumpmaster becomes an overpriced crappy 2-attack ship. Sure it's good, but it has viable counters.

5 hours ago, Tlfj200 said:

As Paul Heaver has said before - the only really sacred information in X-Wing are the dials - so maybe it wasn't a good idea to introduce something like intel agent (or, again, maybe it's just a jump master problem).

My money would be on "It's just (yet another) Jumpmaster problem". Intel Agent came out in Wave 3, and it's been possible to put it on a low-PS large base with barrel roll and a great dial ever since Wave 5. What's changed recently is that it's become possible to take a low-PS large base with barrel roll and a great dial, build it to be one of you main guns and/or fuel the rest of your list, and then just slap the Intel Agent on top because you can and still have only spent 30 or so points.