Carolina Krayts is the best X-Wing podcast

By SaltMaster 5000, in X-Wing

24 minutes ago, svelok said:

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Cut Resistance, and I5 is not particularly more common than 2, 4, or 6; and 1/3 are not all that far behind.

That's still an ace-heavy meta (Vader is worth almost 2 Tempests, so with an imaginary perfectly balanced TIE Advanced you'd expect almost twice as many I2 as I6, etcetc) but the massive spike at I5 is gone and I6 falls from second place to third.

Conclusion: "L'ulo" costs as much as a Black Squadron Scout and six points less than a Zealous Recruit

There, fixed it for you... or actually, for anyone still wondering what's the best ship in the game, haha!

Edited by clanofwolves

At some point I'll limit to 6 round + cut tournaments only to simplify the interpretation.

Short note: the amount of generics increased from 25 to 28% with these new tournaments, and it's almost exclusively based on rebels with 155 y wings and 46 t65s. The other factions contributed 29 sf, 23 rz2, 21 firesprays and 13 strikers. Those were overall numbers.

Looking at purely generic lists: Rebels have 85% lists using at least one unique, while all other are much higher: first order (92%), scum (93.3%), resistance (96%) and imperial (98%), and the overall is 92% or 808 of 879 squads.

Resi5tance faction

7 minutes ago, viedit said:

Resi5tance faction

Question: Why take a generic from other factions, when, for the same cost you can take a cool pilot with a great ability on a chassis like the RZ2A with the same pilot skill level as the infamous Kylo of the FO?

Answer: You wouldn't...

4 hours ago, Dreadai said:

Do you know if anyone from the Aldershot event is going to do Listfortress?

Filled in what I can for now:

https://listfortress.com/tournaments/465

Tom had Resistance 5s but I don't know the exact build.

Resi5tance list building starts at 160 points. The first 40 is Lulocked in.

5 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

Question: Why take a generic from other factions, when, for the same cost you can take a cool pilot with a great ability on a chassis like the RZ2A with the same pilot skill level as the infamous Kylo of the FO?

Because Resistance, despite all the glue and hype, is not actually that good. There are as many lists in swiss as in cut, while the percentage of imperials and rebels go up by much or a bit. So you don't actually want to play resistance if you want to make cut.

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Because Resistance, despite all the glue and hype, is not actually that good. There are as many lists in swiss as in cut, while the percentage of imperials and rebels go up by much or a bit. So you don't actually want to play resistance if you want to make cut.

I ran into a number of Poes that would Poe the limit for a TL and Focus on one of my ships. Burn the focus on offense. And then have 3 arcs staring back at him. There's a lot of Poe players that aren't Poe'ing well.

7 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Because Resistance, despite all the glue and hype, is not actually that good. There are as many lists in swiss as in cut, while the percentage of imperials and rebels go up by much or a bit. So you don't actually want to play resistance if you want to make cut.

Top table at Stockport was all resistance, 3 of the top 4 too with the other being imperials. I genuinely think that for Hyperspace, Resistance is in a good spot for list choice. I'm also pretty sold that Hyperspace is more about how you fly than what you fly.

A trial in Australia a few weeks ago was won by Poe, Lulo, Tallie and Bastian. 5a's have won a couple in the US. That same Poe list won Ohio last weekend. This weekend A Poe + 3a's took 2nd place in Murray. It's a solid faction. I just think it's got a lot of new players using it too that brings down cut rate a lot.

Hey, any Euro here that know if Eindelghoven used best coast pairings?

If so, then we need someone to share the lists with us ASAP before they disappear behind a paywall

So after seeing how hilariously power crept the RZ-2 is, can we assume that Aethersprites will be just as cheap? Could Anakin be 50 points or less without 7b title? Or maybe just five Jedi + 1 named pilot will be competitive.

They've been *A LOT* more conservative with force user pricing. You aren't getting 5+1. Look at Generic Inquisitor's for a general baseline and *maybe* up the price a bit based on availability of configs and titles to increase your damage output.

Without the RZ2 priced where it is, or close thereabouts, the Resistance faction is an outlier in the cut. Without cheap A-Wings, instead of people calling Resistance players the new glue eaters (spoiler, it's still Rebel lists, they're point and shoot), they'd be pointing and laughing about how Resistance players are failing with triple T-70s. Not everyone is PhilGC.

Comparing ships out of faction isn't useful for much other than amassing a pile of salt for faction-loyal or faction-hating players to clamber atop and crow.

2 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

So after seeing how hilariously power crept the RZ-2 is, can we assume that Aethersprites will be just as cheap? Could Anakin be 50 points or less without 7b title? Or maybe just five Jedi + 1 named pilot will be competitive.

I suspect the power of the rear arc was not properly understood when pricing them. Pure statline/action wise they're fine, and that's what we're looking at with Aethersprites. 7b may be underpriced though since based on Lulo they seem to undervalue how good it is to trade a green for a red but we'll see

6 minutes ago, gennataos said:

Comparing ships out of faction isn't useful for much other than amassing a pile of salt for faction-loyal or faction-hating players to clamber atop and crow.

People complain about the pricing, but really it's the initiative of Lulo & Tallie that is the real salt in that wound. Like, A's are good. But the ability to not really give a crap about which way you are pointing and getting good board state knowledge to react is *really* good. Especially at the cost of entry.

Edited by viedit
28 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Because Resistance, despite all the glue and hype, is not actually that good. There are as many lists in swiss as in cut, while the percentage of imperials and rebels go up by much or a bit. So you don't actually want to play resistance if you want to make cut.

Hmmm, maybe resistance isn't as good as people think, but if a faction is good, it's going to get played a lot and it can be tough for it's numbers too keep up with the percentage in the cut. Meanwhile, other factions are played by players who are more dedicated to a faction or list may have more success and that may actually be, in some cases, more important than the actual faction choice. I also think saying you won't want to play a list based on superficial construction (faction, number of ships) is a bit reductionist.

15 minutes ago, Makaze said:

I suspect the power of the rear arc was not properly understood when pricing them. Pure statline/action wise they're fine, and that's what we're looking at with Aethersprites. 7b may be underpriced though since based on Lulo they seem to undervalue how good it is to trade a green for a red but we'll see

You have to realize that Advanced Optics and Heroic are part of the problem too; at least at their current ship cost. I really dislike how they are able to have such continuing mods for their blanks. It's frustrating how, even when you luck out and they get blanks, they can just re-roll and sort of ignore the negative side of variance. They seem to get all paint so much more than the stat-line would suggest because of these two cards. And then, you stack this heightened immunity to variance on the best dial in the game and then you stack that on top of a cheap chassis and then then you stack that on top of a bunch of good named pilots and then you let them have turrets.

I'm sure there are a million excuses for this list, but this is blatant 1.0 power-creep nonsense.

It's disappointing that it's happening so soon into this game, but if they are just going to keep power-creeping the newest ships, then buying Republic might be a good competitive choice all things considered. 5 Aethersprites with some upgrades will probably be a real list unless FFG is suddenly not motivated to sell as many ships as possible. Or, make one of them the arc with palaptine and maybe that will be legal too.

42 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

So after seeing how hilariously power crept the RZ-2 is, can we assume that Aethersprites will be just as cheap? Could Anakin be 50 points or less without 7b title? Or maybe just five Jedi + 1 named pilot will be competitive.

So, a friend of a playtester told me at a local kit tourney that FFG is unhappy with how they undercosted the RZ-2 and thus spent extra focus on the pricing point of the Delta-7 (he does not expect them to nerf the RZ-2 until the next scheduled nerf, given how they still abide by the core mechanics of the game. He also expects that they were fearful of over-costing it a la RZ-1 to the point of unplayability). There was an emergency, pre-release, overnight nerf to their costings, with the following:

  • Anakin went up 10 pt the cost they planned for him for quite some time.
  • Most other named Jedi went up in the ballpark of 5 pt (the 3 force Obi and Mace on the heavier side).
  • Delta 7B's costing is scaled by initiative.

Personally, I find the last baffling and slightly hard to believe, given that 7B outright turns you into an X-wing whereas Calibrated Laser Targeting's value exponentially increases with initiative. But then again, I refused to believe him when he said that Han gunner was 4 pt. and that despite their limited representation aside from Corran in 1st edition, that E-wings became significantly more expensive. I guess the end result is still expected: I5+ turning themselves into interceptors with CLT and I4- turning themselves into x-wings.

12 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

You have to realize that Advanced Optics and Heroic are part of the problem too; at least at their current ship cost. I really dislike how they are able to have such continuing mods for their blanks. It's frustrating how, even when you luck out and they get blanks, they can just re-roll and sort of ignore the negative side of variance. They seem to get all paint so much more than the stat-line would suggest because of these two cards. And then, you stack this heightened immunity to variance on the best dial in the game and then you stack that on top of a cheap chassis and then then you stack that on top of a bunch of good named pilots and then you let them have turrets.

I'm sure there are a million excuses for this list, but this is blatant 1.0 power-creep nonsense. 

In other news: please FFG, make rebel A-wings viable

You are clearly, loudly and everywhere frustrated about the RZ2. They should increase a bit in price, 1pt for generics, 2+ for uniques would be a good start. But you are also overreacting a lot. They have after all just 4hp which is ridiculously low.

7 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

In other news: please FFG, make rebel A-wings viable

You are clearly, loudly and everywhere frustrated about the RZ2. They should increase a bit in price, 1pt for generics, 2+ for uniques would be a good start. But you are also overreacting a lot. They have after all just 4hp which is ridiculously low.

Yeah because it's nonsense with whatever its stats are. Are you upset that I'm calling out nonsense in this game? Do you not remember that FFG's power-creep literally broke the last game so bad that they had to design a new one? Are you unable to remember that the combination of OP dial + cheap always on mods + turrets ended up with the game in a sorry state before?

I'm concerned because it feels like we almost will need to start seeing red dice creep to keep up with Rebels "40 health turrets" and Resistance "do everything good x5". When you are repeatedly shooting A-wings, in arc with mods, and they simply do not take damage, while trading back at you and doing damage, it's a callback to the old game that was, once again, so poorly designed in the end that they had to cancel it and start over.

Edited by ThinkingB
1 minute ago, ThinkingB said:

Yeah because it's nonsense with whatever its stats are. Are you upset that I'm calling out nonsense in this game? Do you not remember that FFG's power-creep literally broke the last game so bad that they had to design a new one? Are you unable to remember that the combination of OP dial + cheap always on mods + turrets ended up with the game in a sorry state before?

I'm concerned because it feels like we almost will need to start seeing red dice creep to keep up with Rebels "40 health turrets" and Resistance "do everything good x5". When you are repeatedly shooting A-wings, in arc with mods, and they simply do not take damage, while trading back at you and doing damage, it's a callback to the old game that was, once again, so poorly designed in the end that they had to cancel it and start over.

599 Lists from hyperspace trials. 125 Lists had an RZ2-Awing (21% of all squads, 80% of all resistance)

But: only 14 (11%) had 5, only 4 lists had 4, and 18 lists had 3 Awings per squad. That tells you enough already: it is not as good to mass them. 38 lists had 2 and 48 had 1 awing. That 1 was of course mostly Lulo.

My point is that you are expanding your dislike for Lulo and rationalizing it when the results really don't support that. At best the other pilots have a high ceiling, but that is a good thing.

The solution is always the same: put them on the table yourself and you'll see how easily they pop.

7 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

Yeah because it's nonsense with whatever its stats are. Are you upset that I'm calling out nonsense in this game? Do you not remember that FFG's power-creep literally broke the last game so bad that they had to design a new one? Are you unable to remember that the combination of OP dial + cheap always on mods + turrets ended up with the game in a sorry state before?

I'm concerned because it feels like we almost will need top start seeing red dice creep to keep up with Rebels "40 health turrets" and Resistance "do everything good x5". When you are repeatedly shooting A-wings, in arc with mods, and they simply do not take damage, while trading back at you, it's a callback to the old game that was, once again, so poorly designed in the end that they had to cancel it and start over.

If there's a problem with A-Wing prices, it's probably largely because of trick shot and optics like others (and yourself) have already said combined with the rear arc. I don't know how much of that is trick shot, because people aren't really using still even though they should be.

I'm surprised to see complaints on power creep w.r.t. advanced optics - most people I know don't think it's worth the points. I disagree with them, but I also don't find it power creep.

I'd steer clear of Heroic when trying to argue power creep - Heroic is deep in probably not better than a bid territory. Just because it feels good to use doesn't make it power creep.

EDIT: forgot to add - I agree lulo is pretty clearly undercosted. I'm not sure about the rest.

Edited by Brunas
1 hour ago, apoapsis said:

Filled in what I can for now:

https://listfortress.com/tournaments/465

Tom had Resistance 5s but I don't know the exact build.

I corrected my list (Didn't have the falcon title) and added Tom's list in - pretty sure I got it right, faced him in the top 8.

1 minute ago, Brunas said:

If there's a problem with A-Wing prices, it's probably largely because of trick shot and optics like others (and yourself) have already said combined with the rear arc. I don't know how much of that is trick shot, because people aren't really using still even though they should be.

I'm surprised to see complaints on power creep w.r.t. advanced optics - most people I know don't think it's worth the points. I disagree with them, but I also don't find it power creep.

I'd steer clear of Heroic when trying to argue power creep - Heroic is deep in probably not better than a bid territory. Just because it feels good to use doesn't make it power creep.

EDIT: forgot to add - I agree lulo is pretty clearly undercosted. I'm not sure about the rest.

My argument for optics pricing being fine is that it is a weird upgrade in that it raises the skill ceiling for the ship it is on (except for the i1s). Optics is another opportunity for a player to spend (or not spend) a focus they shouldn't. When building 5A lists, I add optics from lowest I to highest I.