4 minutes ago, Ablazoned said:

I don't understand what I'm supposed to put Nantexes on the table with in hyperspace. No Ensnare is obvious, but also no crack shot or predator. No Lone wolf or elusive. No palp for super coordinating.

Am I really supposed to run a gravitic intimidation Chertek? Really?!

Has anyone played a nantex without ensnare yet? Maybe it’ll surprise us. Also, Chertek is probably the wrong choice if you aren’t handing out tractor tokens.

8 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

No and no.

It could go down as low as single digit points or low teens where it would be similar to any upgrade granting a 2dice bonus attack (foils+autoblasters, vtg+turret, qd, dengar, bistan, ezra). In this case, like Jagsba says, it's possibly so bad that I don't see a slope, and definitely not a slippery one.

So then my follow up question is, if FFG were to release the X-wing at 41 points where it's not good, then the next release decide to reduce it to 39 so it might see play, would that be power creep?

Is that in any way different than FFG starting with X-Wings at 41 points, then after a year and a half of not seeing play, reducing to 39?

Also, realized I never asked - is there a particular change you think might be an indication of power creep, or is the process of buffing bad things by itself what concerns you? If it's the latter, how is it different than the given example with the obviously bad 2 die 1 hull ship?

5 minutes ago, Brunas said:

So then my follow up question is, if FFG were to release the X-wing at 41 points where it's not good, then the next release decide to reduce it to 39 so it might see play, would that be power creep?

Is that in any way different than FFG starting with X-Wings at 41 points, then after a year and a half of not seeing play, reducing to 39?

Also, realized I never asked - is there a particular change you think might be an indication of power creep, or is the process of buffing bad things by itself what concerns you? If it's the latter, how is it different than the given example with the obviously bad 2 die 1 hull ship?

I can see a potential through line that the designers are aiming for the middle and okay with outliers high and low, so bringing up the middle makes your high outliers higher.

I’m pretty sure that is a relic of first edition thinking where it was hard to bring things down again.

7 minutes ago, AEIllingworth said:

Has anyone played a nantex without ensnare yet? Maybe it’ll surprise us. Also, Chertek is probably the wrong choice if you aren’t handing out tractor tokens.

I did a bunch before points changes. The best combo I found was crack + pred on the Petranakis. But that's dead now.

Sun Fac and Chertek simply don't work without Ensnare, and hp tractor dooku isn't worth it. Imagine not upgrading naked sun Fac to soontir for -1 points.

Berwer is borderline, but probably still not worth it.

Also, first person to remix

to escape from the jedi gets... something

6 minutes ago, Ablazoned said:

I did a bunch before points changes. The best combo I found was crack + pred on the Petranakis. But that's dead now.

Sun Fac and Chertek simply don't work without Ensnare, and hp tractor dooku isn't worth it. Imagine not upgrading naked sun Fac to soontir for -1 points.

Berwer is borderline, but probably still not worth it.

I was kinda thinking all the nantex should go down 5+ and ensnare should go up a little more than the chassis went down. Maybe next time. Without ensnare they feel somewhere in the HWK tie striker range.

26 minutes ago, Ablazoned said:

I don't understand what I'm supposed to put Nantexes on the table with in hyperspace. No Ensnare is obvious, but also no crack shot or predator. No Lone wolf or elusive. No palp for super coordinating.

Am I really supposed to run a gravitic intimidation Chertek? Really?!

54 minutes ago, jagsba said:

If you don't like reading blocks of text, a lot of what @Brunas was talking about is here in video form:

that outro though

let's just use this game as the soundtrack for everything

2 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Isn't the precedent of 1.0 a very strong argument against this?

Could be, with the (strong) caveat that 1E had no reasonable-timeframe mechanics for correction.

Quote

Whether it is false to call it power creep or not: the slow increase of power over time kind of led to stuff like Finalform, no?

It depends, right? If high-Init and Force-users are, in your mind, equivalent to Ghost-Fenn or five X-wings with Flight-Assist Mechs or NymRanda or trimple-Jumps, or whatever, then yeah, recalibrating to that line is absolutely bad.

But I personally don't think the Worst of 2E (as it exists now) gets anywhere even close to the end of 1E, so I'm willing to reserve judgment and accept that FFG clearly thinks the Worst of 2E (as it exists right now) is just fine ... and they might be right.

(FWIW, I'm with Brunas ... it's not power-creep. Power creep isn't changing the amount of stuff that's playable, power creep is upping the highest power level, making it so that the best stuff a month ago can't compete with the best stuff today. Power creep is making absolutely less playable, not more.)

Quote

We can have faith that FFG won't let it get there again. But I expect the 5 generics with few upgrades to slowly turn into 5 generics with more upgrades. "To keep up". If everyone gets improved to keep up - as shown in this points update - then it escalates rather sooner than later.

But if those five generics with upgrades never surpass the top line as it exists now, then what's the problem? If they need upgrades to compete at roughly the same level, that's what they should get, right?

I think it sounds to me like you'd rather the top line be pushed down, sort of prophylactically, and that's a valid viewpoint. But if you can wrench your brain to the viewpoint that FFG thinks the top line is just fine as it exists right now, this points change begins to make a whole lot of sense. I'm (again) not saying that I'm positive it will work. I have reservations. But I think it might work.

Quote

(e: also, nice to have you back. For the whole episode then, I guess?)

Thanks! in addition to holidays, I got all four wisdom teeth out, which (apparently) at 51 years old is kinda Finn-like is how big a deal it is. I honestly thought I'd be back at work on the same day, based on how high my pain tolerance is, and how fast I've recovered in the past from stuff, but this just knocked me on my big alabaster *****. It's been eight days, and things are still aching.

1 minute ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I got all four wisdom teeth out, which (apparently) at 51 years old is kinda Finn-like is how big a deal it is. I honestly thought I'd be back at work on the same day, based on how high my pain tolerance is, and how fast I've recovered in the past from stuff, but this just knocked me on my big alabaster *****. It's been eight days, and things are still aching.

whoa - hope you recover soon!

13 hours ago, jagsba said:

big confuse reacc

Is Obi-Wan and PLO really ace material without 7B? Are you really going to field Anakin in the Y-wing flanked by two sub-par deltas?

idk if they are or not, but I can’t see many people fielding it, or it doing well in hyperspace. Republic seems to not be an ace faction anymore in hyperspace. That mantle belongs to Fo now.

this isn’t a bad thing, I’m okay with exploring Aethersprites becoming Y-wing or Arc-170 support ships (through force abilities, I’m really glad Obi-Wan pretty much escaped unscathed), I just don’t think Republic has an aces list to stand on at the moment.

11 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Is Obi-Wan and PLO really ace material without 7B? Are you really going to field Anakin in the Y-wing flanked by two sub-par deltas?

idk if they are or not, but I can’t see many people fielding it, or it doing well in hyperspace. Republic seems to not be an ace faction anymore in hyperspace. That mantle belongs to Fo now.

They're pretty darned good with CLT, y'know... something about repositioning late initiative fighters getting bullseye and tokens for dice mods too...

CLT Obi and Plo are still reasonable "pocket aces," and Ric Olie is still around. R5s on the Jedi, R2/Daredevil on Ric, a naked Bravo, and 8 points of bid? Doesn't seem too bad, but is it the same? Not really.

6 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Is Obi-Wan and PLO really ace material without 7B? Are you really going to field Anakin in the Y-wing?

idk if they are or not, but I can’t see many people fielding it, or it doing well in hyperspace. Republic is not an ace faction anymore in hyperspace. That mantle belongs to Fo now.

R2A6 CLT is real. But thats gone.

I was playing around with 7th fleet CLT Anakin, but thats doubly gone.

Honestly, removal of 7b from a competitive format might be the single best reason to have a limited format, but they also took away a lot of the other fun toys for Republic. No evade->calc droid for N1s, no Chopper droid for control, no R2A6 for CLT ace play, no 7th fleet gunner to make boom boom R1 CLT attacks, no anvil of 2 generic ARCs, no Mace or Anakin in the Aethersprite, no Gold Squadron V19s for filler, even though the thing that made them great at blocking (sense) is also gone.

I5 reposition and taking a focus is still pretty good. Obi is definitely still quite good at 52 points, but a lot of the other listbuilding tools are gone. Broadside, Wolfe, Obi, Ric is probably still a fine list, its just not that exciting.

3 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

CLT Obi and Plo are still reasonable "pocket aces," and Ric Olie is still around. R5s on the Jedi, R2/Daredevil on Ric, a naked Bravo, and 8 points of bid? Doesn't seem too bad, but is it the same? Not really.

CLT Obi, CLT Plo, R2 Ric and Broadside w/ ICT & Seismics 193. Easy to CLT when opponent can only 1 straight...

2 hours ago, svelok said:

God, this was one of my favorite shows on TV when I was younger.

47 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Is Obi-Wan and PLO really ace material without 7B?

absolutely

47 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Are you really going to field Anakin in the Y-wing flanked by two sub-par deltas?

goodness no

47 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

idk if they are or not, but I can’t see many people fielding it, or it doing well in hyperspace. Republic seems to not be an ace faction anymore in hyperspace. That mantle belongs to Fo now.

this isn’t a bad thing, I’m okay with exploring Aethersprites becoming Y-wing or Arc-170 support ships (through force abilities, I’m really glad Obi-Wan pretty much escaped unscathed), I just don’t think Republic has an aces list to stand on at the moment.

there's a lot of ace options in there, they're just different now, but hyperspace is different.

Had a lot to catch up with.

I agree with Jeff. Very nicely done.

I have hope that our I3/I4s will get caught up by the next rotation and everything will be beautiful.

CLT Plo and Obi are both tops. Without a 90pt regen fortress to flirt with with, I think they're fun, wholesome and all good things. They were undercosted, we'll see if that's still true, I kinda think maybe not..

Rest of the list is tricky to me. Broadside is genuine, but then you need a considerably punchy, and vaguely durable no. 4.

Summon the LAAT.

4 hours ago, Brunas said:

So then my follow up question is, if FFG were to release the X-wing at 41 points where it's not good, then the next release decide to reduce it to 39 so it might see play, would that be power creep?

Is that in any way different than FFG starting with X-Wings at 41 points, then after a year and a half of not seeing play, reducing to 39?

Also, realized I never asked - is there a particular change you think might be an indication of power creep, or is the process of buffing bad things by itself what concerns you? If it's the latter, how is it different than the given example with the obviously bad 2 die 1 hull ship?

The power curve has shifted in my opinion. Reasoning:

It's hard to 100% determine, but generally Power Creep refers to a blanket increase in power level, not a handful of outliers. In the instance of season 3, a lot of "baseline" chasis i.e. ships that factions seem to be balanced around, enjoyed a 1-2pt decrease a long with a lot of underused pilots. A number of these ships also hit break points, so it's easier now than previously to have, for example, 5-6 ships with a printed attack value of 3. In my opinion, the power curve has shifted up slightly as opposed to the approach previously of trying to bring outliers back down. This means that the season 3 updates are best translated as "Ships that went down stayed the same, ships that stayed the same got nerfed, ships that went up got really nerfed"

Also, CIS in HS might be the weakest faction. Republic took a hit, but CIS lost most of the multipliers for their cheap bodies (sear, ESC, tractor) except for a single tac relay, so it might be hard to get enough work out of Vultures and without that, the faction is iffy.

24 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Also, CIS in HS might be the weakest faction. Republic took a hit, but CIS lost most of the multipliers for their cheap bodies (sear, ESC, tractor) except for a single tac relay, so it might be hard to get enough work out of Vultures and without that, the faction is iffy.

Hyenas look good though. 6 TUBs with cluster mines looks kinda scary.

2 minutes ago, Cerebrawl said:

Hyenas look good though. 6 TUBs with cluster mines looks kinda scary.

You kind of need Hyenas, it's just "what type and what upgrades?". I guess you could run 8 naked, but doesn't seem that stellar

29 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Also, CIS in HS might be the weakest faction. Republic took a hit, but CIS lost most of the multipliers for their cheap bodies (sear, ESC, tractor) except for a single tac relay, so it might be hard to get enough work out of Vultures and without that, the faction is iffy.

Cis still stronk. Droids and hyena are gud. Ta-175 stronk. Sear gone but so are most of the hardest aces to deal with which was really the weak spot for cis swarm

1 minute ago, jagsba said:

Cis still stronk. Droids and hyena are gud. Ta-175 stronk. Sear gone but so are most of the hardest aces to deal with which was really the weak spot for cis swarm

IF they had kept ESCs, I'd be more confident in that. Without it, just trying to pew down with 2 dice can be harsh and very RNG heavy

1 hour ago, Cuz05 said:

CLT Plo and Obi are both tops. Without a 90pt regen fortress to flirt with with, I think they're fun, wholesome and all good things.

I know you mean well Cuz, but I just spit my pint all over my phone... thank goodness for OtterBox.

...now where's another pint?