1 minute ago, gennataos said:

I don't want to derail the other conversations going on, but we've been talking locally about Vader pilot, or the near absence thereof. Why do we think that is? The obvious answer seems to be that cloak 'n choke Whisper is cheaper and arguably better, but I don't think it's that simple. I think Whisper is easier, for lack of a better word. She's point and shoot and generates an obvious thread zone with Vader crew, which people try to avoid. On top of that, she can recover from a mistake or bad positioning better than Vader pilot.

I'd been running a Vader/Soontir/Sai list similar to Asa's from the Mynock Open and his showing only strengthened my resolve to keep at it. I've not run through all known meta matchups and compared it to Whisper/Redline/Soontir, but...I'm not scared?

Any thoughts?

Vader crew Whisper is significantly easier than Vader pilot.

2 minutes ago, gennataos said:

but...I'm not scared?

Oh! You will be. You will be...

I want to call Juke Coldet Vader whisper "Classic Choke" and the version without coldet "Diet Choke".

Vader is difficult to pilot in the sense that a single mistake could end him. Even with Supernatural, it's not going to save you from everything. Whisper has a great token stack and doesn't care about being blocked as long as she can shoot.

1 hour ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

It is the list building stage where I'll probably screw up. I was going over the Mynock stats and I wish they had also included median squad size, especially for Rebels. I'm tempted to just take Bruna's list because I think it is the best version of Whisper/Red/Fel.

I don't even need to look at the numbers. It's 3. I think one faction once didn't have median 3.

20 minutes ago, skotothalamos said:

Juke Whisper, Juke Fel, and Juke Rexler are 200. Who needs a bid? Who needs Vader?

funny, I was looking at that exact list...

16 minutes ago, skotothalamos said:

Juke Whisper, Juke Fel, and Juke Rexler are 200. Who needs a bid? Who needs Vader?

Yep, that's one of the lists going on the table tomorrow, we'll see how much I miss Vader

17 minutes ago, gennataos said:

I don't want to derail the other conversations going on, but we've been talking locally about Vader pilot, or the near absence thereof. Why do we think that is? The obvious answer seems to be that cloak 'n choke Whisper is cheaper and arguably better, but I don't think it's that simple. I think Whisper is easier, for lack of a better word. She's point and shoot and generates an obvious thread zone with Vader crew, which people try to avoid. On top of that, she can recover from a mistake or bad positioning better than Vader pilot.

I'd been running a Vader/Soontir/Sai list similar to Asa's from the Mynock Open and his showing only strengthened my resolve to keep at it. I've not run through all known meta matchups and compared it to Whisper/Redline/Soontir, but...I'm not scared?

Any thoughts?

You sort of nailed it - Vader is easier to make mistakes with. Force is another resource to manage and I think that creates a higher skill floor than Whisper. When you have 3 Force points, it can be really tempting to just use them all in one turn, but then you are really screwed the next turn or two. With Luke, he regens Force so quickly that it is harder to make mistakes with him.

Some of it also probably has to do with perception. Whisper w/Vader is perceived as the best imperial pilot in addition to Redline. If Vader pilot is 95 and Whisper/Vader is a 96, you are going to see a lot more Whispers because people chase the meta.

I also like Sai lists in general and Asa's list actually does a lot to make Vader/Soontir easier to fly with increased action efficiency.

9 minutes ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

I also like Sai lists in general and Asa's list actually does a lot to make Vader/Soontir easier to fly with increased action efficiency.

What’s the list?

32 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

Vader crew Whisper is significantly easier than Vader pilot.

So if the floor is higher for Whisper, I guess the next question is whether or not a Vader pilot list could have a higher ceiling...?

11 minutes ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

Force is another resource to manage and I think that creates a higher skill floor than Whisper. When you have 3 Force points, it can be really tempting to just use them all in one turn, but then you are really screwed the next turn or two.

Sai does make that force management significantly easier.

i think the only reason you see whisper more than vader is that it makes redlines fully modified target lock easier.

lets not pretend that i6 whisper (also known as vader) is difficult or somehow worse than whisper

@gennataos at our battle of AB tournament there was no Vader pilot anywhere. The build restricitons were that each city (Edmonton/Calgary) could only use 1 unique character per side on a team of 12. Very interesting build restrictions. (Ie: Only one Vader for the whole city, could be pilot or crew).

Calgary had a better list building formula than we did in Edmonton (we still won), but one of the things I overheard was that no one in Calgary was allowed to use Vader because you have to actually be good at the game to fly Vader.

8 minutes ago, impspy said:

What’s the list?

I think it was this...

Imp aces

(52) Soontir Fel
(2) Predator
Points 54

(70) Darth Vader
(12) Supernatural Reflexes
(8) Afterburners
Points 90

(47) Lieutenant Sai
(8) Advanced Sensors
Points 55

Total points: 199

wait? no FCS on Vader? odd

10 minutes ago, impspy said:

What’s the list?

I can't access the google doc to reference the list exactly, but it was something like this:

Just now, Wiredin said:

wait? no FCS on Vader? odd

He explained that he would use the TIE Adv ability to turn a hit to a crit before rerolling, but he found in most cases that he was spending the Locks anyway. Makes sense to me and I do think Afterburners is more valuable to Vader than FCS.

16 minutes ago, RStan said:

He explained that he would use the TIE Adv ability to turn a hit to a crit before rerolling, but he found in most cases that he was spending the Locks anyway. Makes sense to me and I do think Afterburners is more valuable to Vader than FCS.

interesting, makes sense. I haven't toyed with vader enough yet.

14 minutes ago, RStan said:

He explained that he would use the TIE Adv ability to turn a hit to a crit before rerolling, but he found in most cases that he was spending the Locks anyway. Makes sense to me and I do think Afterburners is more valuable to Vader than FCS.

Interesting...I've found the opposite. My Vader LOCKs usually stick on the same target until it's dead. Doesn't it math out that you're more likely to roll only one blank than two? I think in Asa's version, I'd consider dropping Predator on Soontir before I'd drop FCS.

I do agree Vader really needs Afterburners.

1 minute ago, gennataos said:

Interesting...I've found the opposite. My Vader LOCKs usually stick on the same target until it's dead. Doesn't it math out that you're more likely to roll only one blank than two? I think in Asa's version, I'd consider dropping Predator on Soontir before I'd drop FCS.

I do agree Vader really needs Afterburners.

Im usually spending the lock for kills or if i have plenty of force charges in reserve.

Just now, Boom Owl said:

Im usually spending the lock for kills or if i have plenty of force charges in reserve.

I'm never hesitant to spend the lock, I just usually find I don't have to. When I do, it's usually a range 1 attack and I'm way okay with that.

Just now, gennataos said:

Interesting...I've found the opposite. My Vader LOCKs usually stick on the same target until it's dead. Doesn't it math out that you're more likely to roll only one blank than two? I think in Asa's version, I'd consider dropping Predator on Soontir before I'd drop FCS.

I do agree Vader really needs Afterburners.

Math definitely says only one reroll for 3 dice should be necessary based upon Vader's force tokens if you're completely prioritizing offense. Although, I've seen players spend locks more when a the roll of "blank, focus, hit" happens because they want to retain the resource of the force tokens as much as necessary. They'd rather keep most of the charges for defense than offense in cases when using all mods for offense still wouldn't kill a ship or get it to half points.

Yeah after running the Coruscant list I'm moving back towards putting AB on Vader; without it he winds up in situation where he's *just* in range and can't escape getting glassed.

1 minute ago, RStan said:

Math definitely says only one reroll for 3 dice should be necessary based upon Vader's force tokens if you're completely prioritizing offense. Although, I've seen players spend locks more when a the roll of "blank, focus, hit" happens because they want to retain the resource of the force tokens as much as necessary. They'd rather keep most of the charges for defense than offense in cases when using all mods for offense still wouldn't kill a ship or get it to half points.

Those force charges help a ton on defense. Wish there was a way to get Vader infinite force charges so i could think even less. *Looks at Luke

Just now, Boom Owl said:

Those force charges help a ton on defense. Wish there was a way to get Vader infinite force charges so i could think even less. *Looks at Luke

Can't wait for the Dark Side force power that breaks Vader pilot wide open.

2 minutes ago, impspy said:

Can't wait for the Dark Side force power that breaks Vader pilot wide open.

Wut?

Super Mario Vader 4life.

*I see now how that was probably sarcastic

*Wait what if dark side force powers are in addition to supernatural???! Can I have both?