18 minutes ago, svelok said:Falling ship counts?
Are ship counts falling? Like serious question, I don't know.
I don't even remember what pushed 2 ship lists out in the first place... I think it was more that the ships that liked to do it went up in cost than anything else right?
I feel like 2 ship lists are maybe a counter to beefy things, sort of like that PhilGC article about "how to beat Yions"
6 minutes ago, Kieransi said:Are ship counts falling? Like serious question, I don't know.
I don't even remember what pushed 2 ship lists out in the first place... I think it was more that the ships that liked to do it went up in cost than anything else right?
I feel like 2 ship lists are maybe a counter to beefy things, sort of like that PhilGC article about "how to beat Yions"
Compared to when, I guess is the question. It seemed early on there was a ton of 4+ lists, now it seems more like 4-. Early Drea swarms alone were enough to keep most 2-ship lists in hiding.
11 minutes ago, Biophysical said:
So if you get the free evade and the 3 speed moves was the right choice both times, you don't pull ahead until turn 3 of combat, which is basically putting you into the midgame. At that point, reload and SLAM seem way better to me than the conditional evade.
I guess when I see a low/mid initiative bruiser, initial performance is most important. The Gunboat has better initial performance. If you make it to midgame, and you have a lot of HP left and want to keep threatening, Gunboat can reload. If you need to preserve points, Gunboat can SLAM away. The N1 is better at tanking low numbers of shots over time, which I don't think is an especially useful strength in that kind of ship. It's nice if you have it, but it seems hard to give up the Gunboat advantages (HP, Reload, lower cost).
Right, I agree with all of those things, but the N1 options to bring things like R2-C4 (or just regen) are the reasons I'd bring it - I don't think a gunboat with just passive/protons is worth bringing, and the same for a passive/proton N1. Might be wrong of course, but for those prices (48/50 points) it seems like there's just better stuff you could get. For example, realistically I want a passive/proton/astromech on diner or whatever the i3 N1 is with the ludicrous pilot ability.
8 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:...percentage of pilots in the faction that are competitive completely outstrips nearly everyone....
Is this a useful metric? If Empire has 6 ships that are competitive out of 20 or whatever, aren't they better off than republic who might have four out of four?
56 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:Quad Phantoms got nerfed pretty hard but Vader and Soontir only got sneezed on. Palp shuttles, high initiative aces, et cetera all exist.
I'm not sure this is a good argument either - Soontir/Vader only got sneezed on, but weren't that prevalent and may have only been doing well for meta reasons. Do you want to play aces if passive sensor munitions are everywhere?
Also that feeling when you're trying to build lists with slow, beefy generics and you remember inferno squad didn't get touched by the points update
3 minutes ago, Kieransi said:Are ship counts falling? Like serious question, I don't know.
I don't even remember what pushed 2 ship lists out in the first place... I think it was more that the ships that liked to do it went up in cost than anything else right?
I feel like 2 ship lists are maybe a counter to beefy things, sort of like that PhilGC article about "how to beat Yions"
Sample sizes and all, but over the weekend I played a tournament and saw the following
3xB and U-wing
3x E And Z-95
3x E And A
2xE And Wedge
3 force Oicun, Soontir Bomber
2x Jedi and Arc
2x Arc 2x Torrent 1x Jedi (me, winner)
and some other thing I can’t recall that was 4 ships. Broadly speaking ship counts in my local meta have been fairly stable. Early days on new points, but I’ve also seen an increase as CIS has been getting a second look. Lots of Bubble bobbles and Vultures.
25 minutes ago, Brunas said:Right, I agree with all of those things, but the N1 options to bring things like R2-C4 (or just regen) are the reasons I'd bring it - I don't think a gunboat with just passive/protons is worth bringing, and the same for a passive/proton N1. Might be wrong of course, but for those prices (48/50 points) it seems like there's just better stuff you could get. For example, realistically I want a passive/proton/astromech on diner or whatever the i3 N1 is with the ludicrous pilot ability.
Okay, N1 has more abusable toys. That's a reason.
1 hour ago, Micanthropyre said:Power rankings for Extended:
#7 - Separatists because you can't convince me that anything is good
#6 - Scum because they have to start from scratch again
#5 - First Order, held up solely by Kylo and 2 Starkillers.
#4 - Resistance. Might actually be as low as #6 but Rey and all those new crew options is the wildcard for maybe is really good now especially with point drop.
#3 - Rebel. Sure, Beef took a 20 point hit to the dome but there were a lot of other good things waiting in the wings.
#2 - Republic. Passive mods are good apparently and with nearly every other faction getting hit way harder, the percentage of pilots in the faction that are competitive completely outstrips nearly everyone.
#1 - Empire. Quad Phantoms got nerfed pretty hard but Vader and Soontir only got sneezed on. Palp shuttles, high initiative aces, et cetera all exist. And for reference, Quad Phantoms got a 14 point nerf while average Rebel Beef got hit for 20 and so did Dreadloks. Imperial Bias!!!
I tend to agree with this list, although Republic and Rebels seem much closer than let's say Resistance and Scum, more like tied 2nd place. Also I believe there is more to FO than double Upsilons but they sorely lack some of the faction-specific options other factions have. Scum was held up by the strength of Dreadloks, but that's out now. I believe we will see a lot of Ketsu/OT lists which seems much stronger than other Scum offerings and may be on par with other factions, but the rest of Scum seems severely underpowered and one list doesn't make a faction.
1 hour ago, Brunas said:Is this a useful metric? If Empire has 6 ships that are competitive out of 20 or whatever, aren't they better off than republic who might have four out of four?
I'm not sure this is a good argument either - Soontir/Vader only got sneezed on, but weren't that prevalent and may have only been doing well for meta reasons. Do you want to play aces if passive sensor munitions are everywhere?
Power rankings in sports are also rarely useful outside of being an interesting conversation piece. And 6 viable ships versus 4 viable ships also isn't that useful either, if the 4 Republic ships are better than all 6 of the Empire ships. Basically, nothing is useful except data and I recall enough conversations where even the data we collect is only marginally useful.
I mean, maybe, if I can still dodge arcs? Hard to say without playing it. Similar answer as well to the above because power rankings are just the way I feel about a faction going into the list-building phase without any meaningful metagame data.
What it comes down to is that this list is more a reference as to how easy would it be to build a list that I'd be confident heading into a tournament with. I think that Imperial and Republic have the most direct options survive the points change, with Rebel having enough alternate pieces that they will be okay. Below that is more of a guess because Resistance, FO, and CIS never had a presence and nothing got much better outside of Rey and Scum's only true meta list got rekt.
20 minutes ago, Pink_Viking said:I tend to agree with this list, although Republic and Rebels seem much closer than let's say Resistance and Scum, more like tied 2nd place. Also I believe there is more to FO than double Upsilons but they sorely lack some of the faction-specific options other factions have. Scum was held up by the strength of Dreadloks, but that's out now. I believe we will see a lot of Ketsu/OT lists which seems much stronger than other Scum offerings and may be on par with other factions, but the rest of Scum seems severely underpowered and one list doesn't make a faction.
So I think every faction (except maybe CIS) has at least a starting point for one decent list. Scum might end up being the surprise faction, their stuff is so weird that it might just work. Also now that you can fit the 3 good IGs with title in a list that could be a thing.
Resistance is a wildcard, and FO isn't good. Ship count is too high for Midnight, and I've never been impressed with Quickdraw, either playing with or against.
1 minute ago, Micanthropyre said:Resistance is a wildcard, and FO isn't good. Ship count is too high for Midnight, and I've never been impressed with Quickdraw, either playing with or against.
I question people putting FO so far down in their "faction rankings." So many things got a bit cheaper and was offset by an increase in the Upsilons, so in most cases, points were just shifted or decreased. As we saw in hyperspace trials and some system opens, Kylo is the centerpiece and go from there either with Tavson/SKB or Tavson/QD. There had even been a bit of success with Tavson/QD/Scorch/Named Cheaper FO or SF. I wouldn't count them out as even though they were taken in smaller numbers in comparison to other factions, they performed quite well in the previous meta.
14 minutes ago, RStan said:I question people putting FO so far down in their "faction rankings." So many things got a bit cheaper and was offset by an increase in the Upsilons, so in most cases, points were just shifted or decreased. As we saw in hyperspace trials and some system opens, Kylo is the centerpiece and go from there either with Tavson/SKB or Tavson/QD. There had even been a bit of success with Tavson/QD/Scorch/Named Cheaper FO or SF. I wouldn't count them out as even though they were taken in smaller numbers in comparison to other factions, they performed quite well in the previous meta.
100% Grade A Hyperspace Beef
18 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:Power rankings in sports are also rarely useful outside of being an interesting conversation piece. And 6 viable ships versus 4 viable ships also isn't that useful either, if the 4 Republic ships are better than all 6 of the Empire ships. Basically, nothing is useful except data and I recall enough conversations where even the data we collect is only marginally useful.
Ranking archetypes by tiers is best in terms accurately converting whats good.
Ranking factions sequentially is a bit regressive, but I can still see the desire in a game where a lot of players have faction loyalty.
In an ideal meta it wouldn't be necessary, we could say "all factions have at least 1 A-tier archetypes and no S-tier lists exist" but this will rarely be the case (If ever now, with 7 factions). You have to wonder how much of this is intentional (for either profit or variety reasons), how much is due to lack of due diligence, and how much is just unavoidable.
5 minutes ago, RStan said:I question people putting FO so far down in their "faction rankings." So many things got a bit cheaper and was offset by an increase in the Upsilons, so in most cases, points were just shifted or decreased. As we saw in hyperspace trials and some system opens, Kylo is the centerpiece and go from there either with Tavson/SKB or Tavson/QD. There had even been a bit of success with Tavson/QD/Scorch/Named Cheaper FO or SF. I wouldn't count them out as even though they were taken in smaller numbers in comparison to other factions, they performed quite well in the previous meta.
So my real reason for not liking the FO stuff getting cheaper is that they don't have force multipliers to really capitalize on fitting in more small stuff. I'll assign some power numbers to the factions that might better illustrate where I see them:
Power Level 2 - Separatists
Power Level 4 - Scum
Power Level 5 - First Order
Power Level 6 - Resistance.
Power Level 8 - Rebel.
Power Level 9 - Republic.
Power Level 10 - Empire.
11 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:So my real reason for not liking the FO stuff getting cheaper is that they don't have force multipliers to really capitalize on fitting in more small stuff.
This is advanced optics and fanatical erasure
3 minutes ago, prauxim said:Ranking archetypes by tiers is best in terms accurately converting whats good.
Ranking factions sequentially is a bit regressive, but I can still see the desire in a game where a lot of players have faction loyalty.
In an ideal meta it wouldn't be necessary, we could say "all factions have at least 1 A-tier archetypes and no S-tier lists exist" but this will rarely be the case (If ever now, with 7 factions). You have to wonder how much of this is intentional (for either profit or variety reasons), how much is due to lack of due diligence, and how much is just unavoidable.
I'm looking at what I have available to me to build with, and making a general assumption that the more good options I have the better off a faction is, and I try to arbitrarily factor in whether or not something from the prior format still exists. I could also make guesses at which archetypes might be powerful and that could be interesting as well, but your point is well taken about the regressive nature of ranking factions.
I also want to still stress the concept that just because I have CIS as the worst faction doesn't mean that a powerful meta list can't come out of it.
Empire and Rebel are going to be really hard to knock off the top simply because they have more chances to have a ship or pilot be powerful, simply because they have a lot of stuff. However, Scum has a lot of stuff that seems like pure garbage, and on the other hand Republic seems to have at least one if not multiple viable pilots for every ship they have, which allows them to jump up.
4 minutes ago, jagsba said:This is advanced optics and fanatical erasure
You might be right! Got a list?
26 minutes ago, prauxim said:Ranking archetypes by tiers is best in terms accurately converting whats good.
I have some beef with the term 'tier' and want to finally finish a blog post on that. I think dynamic range of performance floor to ceiling is much better.
One day I will... maybe when we get that ace definition...
5 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:I have some beef with the term 'tier' and want to finally finish a blog post on that. I think dynamic range of performance floor to ceiling is much better.
One day I will... maybe when we get that ace definition...
Blue RZ2s are aces, change my mind.
3 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:Blue RZ2s are aces, change my mind.
I don't know what that means because @catachanninja won't say what ace means
(but more seriously, yes, I agree. But my definition of an ace depends strongly on how much it has to avoid damage)
3 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:Blue RZ2s are aces, change my mind.
Of course they are. That's the stock color.
But at 38 points for Heroic and AO, that's not a bad value.
If the ship count of lists inches closer to 3 ships, FO (and Scum to a lesser degree) will increase in power, since they thrive against smaller # lists.
53 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:I have some beef with the term 'tier' and want to finally finish a blog post on that. I think dynamic range of performance floor to ceiling is much better.
One day I will... maybe when we get that ace definition...
For general discussion, a tier system is the best compromise between fidelity and simplicity. More complex analysis is fine for meta wing/blog posts.
It's interesting to look at range of performance, but ultimately the ceiling is more reliable than the range as a whole. E.g. the fact that a lot of people of various skill levels chose to fly rebel beef, and many did poorly. does nothing to change the fact that it was s-tier in the context of competitive list discussion.
Maybe a dual rating approach representing something like 10th and 50th percentile would be interesting.
Trying to wrap my head around the Republic changes I wrote down all the archetypes that seem worth exploring for the faction. Which do you like the most? Did I miss anything? Or does something look bad at the first glance?
Republic Beef
- 4 ARCs
- Kenobi + ARCs/Torrents
- Luminara + Sinker + Torrents
7b Jedi
- 3 of Kenobi Ric Mace Plo
- 2x7b Jedi + ARC
- 2x7b Jedi + 2xTorrent
CLT Jedi
- 3 uniques + ARC
- 5 CLT Knights
Naboo Defense Force
- 3 unique N-1s
- 4 generics with Passive Torps
- 1 unique + 3 Torp generics
Anakin + support
- 2 of Luminara/Padmé/Handmaidens
Bonus round: Anakin + Obi-Wan
Edit: Here's also the list for CIS:
Edited by Pink_VikingOne other thing on N-1 vs Gunboat: I worry that N-1 Full Throttle could be a hidden disadvantage.
Because you want to engage with Evade, you'll want to engage with a 3-speed move. This gives your opponents a far easier time guessing how your Passive Sensors Proton Torpedoes ships will fly on the approach. 3-speed only (or 4-5 straight), or else they're essentially down 2 hit points when compared a Gunboat.
Gunboats can dial in any of 1-2-3 speed. I feel like that flexibility from the Gunboat will make an opponent's job at range control a bit harder. Now, enough skill on the part of the N-1 player will get around this. However, I know I personally sucked with Cruise Missiles in 1e. I'm probably staying away from Passive Sensors N-1s for the same reason.
Is AOE still the enemy?
Do what you want man
Do what you want, man.