58 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

Wedge would be better in a y-wing, given what people are using him for (a proton torpedo alpha carrier).


Prove me wrong.

hard to do when you speak the truth.

5 minutes ago, jagsba said:

hard to do when you speak the truth.

Y-Wing Wedge would be so good... (unironic statement)

8 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

Y-Wing Wedge would be so good... (unironic statement)

It really would. Wedge in a Z or A wouldn't suck either.

5 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

It really would. Wedge in a Z or A wouldn't suck either.

Yep!

1 hour ago, Biophysical said:

It really would. Wedge in a Z or A wouldn't suck either.

In the old EU wedge actually used a z95 to get revenge on the people responsible for the death of his parents, but Disney took that from us!!!!!!!

I've come around to the fact that the bad taste if FSR/100 point ace might have prevented me from accepting range 1 support as a legit strategy.

Just Biggs and some Selfless can extend the life of a 4X squad (although there is probably stuff better than 4X). It wouldn't necessarily be max defense like FSR, but it would get 4 medium fighters well into the midgame intact, which is worth something.

1 minute ago, Biophysical said:

I've come around to the fact that the bad taste if FSR/100 point ace might have prevented me from accepting range 1 support as a legit strategy.

Just Biggs and some Selfless can extend the life of a 4X squad (although there is probably stuff better than 4X). It wouldn't necessarily be max defense like FSR, but it would get 4 medium fighters well into the midgame intact, which is worth something. 

on my list of things to try after l5r worlds is selfess rebels with saw. I wonder if you can play the damage spread mini game well enough to keep saws ability on and everybody alive. I don't think i actually Want to play that though which comes back to one of my complaints for the faction, if any of this team work defensive stacking stuff is powerful, it's not good for the game

3 minutes ago, catachanninja said:

on my list of things to try after l5r worlds is selfess rebels with saw. I wonder if you can play the damage spread mini game well enough to keep saws ability on and everybody alive. I don't think i actually Want to play that though which comes back to one of my complaints for the faction, if any of this team work defensive stacking stuff is powerful, it's not good for the game

I was brainstorming Selfless Saw lists last night.

At least in my head, it felt less like FSR, and more of just stretching the life of your mediocre fighters a bit longer than it should be. Maybe that's not actually different.

7 hours ago, Sunitsa said:

Bear in mind that I still think the sample size is way too small so far to make any real use of those data, but there isn't anything yet that seems to confirm Wedge is actually bad.

If anything, those events just showed that the "obvious" rebel lists being a bit behind the other factions (and that's the scum have the higher cut conversion).

I mostly agree with everything you said, just snipping most of it to save space. Glad to see all the data - looks like (at least the parts I doubled checked) it lined up with what I have, which is a great sanity check.

So, there's a lot of small sample size data in there, but :

1. 81 wedges in a pool of 391 (or 70/300 if you exclude coruscant) is a high sample size. Clearly, whatever it is people are trying to do with Wedge isn't working. Like you said, it's not a rebel low hanging fruit, it just looks like it might be one so people are trying it.
2. Luke does perform similarly to wedge - until you exclude all the Lukes that didn't bring supernatural reflexes. Then he performs about as well as Whisper and scum Fenn Rau.

Better question - what would it take for you to agree that Wedge is bad? How many tournaments do we need of results of poor Wedge performances? Not facetious - just wondering when "low sample size" ends.

EDIT: I guess I should add, I don't have any stock in Wedge being bad. I don't WANT him to be bad or anything.

A list starts out with Luke - Supernatural Reflexes, Config, Proton Torpedoes. Then add Sabine in the Attack Shuttle. That's 121 points.

There are some extras I'd like to include. I would like a regen robot on Luke (R2-D2 or his generic brother). I'd like a Talent on Sabine - either Trick Shot, Debris Gambit, or Juke. But that can be figured in after asking the big question.

What to fly with this?

I feel like there has to be a great answer, but I don't know what it is. One option that hasn't gotten a lot of press is Dutch Vander. His passing around Locks is excellent (even potentially giving a lock to Sabine, which is just great). But the problem there is that the points make an ill fit. You want Proton Torpedoes on Dutch (or at least, I do). But that's 51 points. And just like that, you are locked into three ships, but you have 22 points left to spend. And so your Sabine gets bigger than desired. Your Dutch gets bigger than you'd want. The whole thing just fits oddly.

You can keep Dutch bare (maybe a cheap Talent or something) and then add in AP-5 for the sweet sweet coordinate. Dutch at 42 plus AP-5 at 30 gives 7 points to work with on add-ons.

There is room for some of the strong rebel cards if you stick with three ships (Luke, Sabine, Dutch). You can include Selfless, Cassian, etc.

But maybe there is an even more ideal third wheel who works better. Or maybe I am wrong and Proton should come off Luke. Maybe I'm just wrong (well, this is certain).

Any insights?

7 minutes ago, Brunas said:

So, there's a lot of small sample size data in there, but :

1. 81 wedges in a pool of 391 (or 70/300 if you exclude coruscant) is a high sample size. Clearly, whatever it is people are trying to do with Wedge isn't working. Like you said, it's not a rebel low hanging fruit, it just looks like it might be one so people are trying it.

What makes it smaller than the numbers would seem to show is that we are taking into consideration just 3 events at best, if similar percentage of play would be on more events I would agree with you

7 minutes ago, Brunas said:

1. Luke does perform similarly to wedge - until you exclude all the Lukes that didn't bring supernatural reflexes. Then he performs about as well as Whisper and scum Fenn Rau.

Interesting point, I wasn't checking what Luke was carrying.

However, I checked it and it turns out the Spanish (which accounts for more than half the data) don't seem to use SupNat almost at all: only 3 out of 40 Luke had it (assuming all the lists are correct which is something I start to doubt)

7 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Better question - what would it take for you to agree that Wedge is bad? How many tournaments do we need of results of poor Wedge performances? Not facetious - just wondering when "low sample size" ends.

EDIT: I guess I should add, I don't have any stock in Wedge being bad. I don't WANT him to be bad or anything.

Good question, it will need to see play with the right wingmates. As I said I'm a strong beleiver of wedge + 3 beefy generics which is an archetype that I still didn't really see showing up in either of those tournament (the list went 4-1 at the UKTC thought, but that was a team tournament and it was only played by one team).

I don't have any stock on Wedge being good either, it's just that my personal experience so far is telling me he's good once is put in the right setting to shine and meanwhile I'm finding the obnoxious presence of so many ps 6 (or ps5 with crazy bids) making it harder to SupNat Luke to justify his cost.

I wasn't even paying that much attention on tournament data other than what was in the cut until you pointed them out to me, but I have to say it was an interesting look.

Rebels future imo is the right 4 ships list combination and a skinny wedge really shine there (but rebels need to move away from Sabine shuttle and Blount as 2 piece of a 4 ships: they are good but die way too easely to be reliable)

On 10/26/2018 at 2:22 PM, Brunas said:

also, the average rebel player appears to be significantly below average. Actually, that's backwards - the average "below average" player appears to gravitate towards rebels, which really skews chassis performance.

37 minutes ago, Brunas said:

81 wedges in a pool of 391 (or 70/300 if you exclude coruscant) is a high sample size. Clearly, whatever it is people are trying to do with Wedge isn't working. Like you said, it's not a rebel low hanging fruit, it just looks like it might be one so people are trying it

The former is at least part of the explanation of the later. In almost all my games against Wedge so far (casual, so representative of how at least 50% of swiss plays) he jousts, gets off maybe one torp, one primary (often without mods), and dies. His ability nets him roughly one extra damage and his I6 is generally wasted.

Luke on the other hand acquits himself better when played poorly, always having mods for both offense and defense and being better at hitting the eject button on a bad move with a supernatural boost. So at least part of what we're seeing is that the skill floor on Luke is way higher than on Wedge. Not to say that Luke isn't better than Wedge, he definitely is. But given the skew in Rebel players/playstyles that difference in floor makes an outsized result in outcome well beyond their actual relative merits

37 minutes ago, Clutterbuck said:

A list starts out with Luke - Supernatural Reflexes, Config, Proton Torpedoes. Then add Sabine in the Attack Shuttle. That's 121 points.

AdvSensor torpedoes Redling + Juke Whisper are 117 points

Fearless Fenn Rau + Moldy Crow Palob are 121 points

That's why I don't think Luke+Sabine could be the core of a rebel list: you are going to face lists which cores are those and you fall off worse on comparison

Man, when I see something like this, Rasta dismantling Simeon and another guy running Redline & Cloak/Choke Whisper with what pretty much anyone would call a clearly inferior list...I don't even care that much about list building and just want to fly fast, maneuverable ships.

1 hour ago, Makaze said:

The former is at least part of the explanation of the later. In almost all my games against Wedge so far (casual, so representative of how at least 50% of swiss plays) he jousts, gets off maybe one torp, one primary (often without mods), and dies. His ability nets him roughly one extra damage and his I6 is generally wasted.

Luke on the other hand acquits himself better when played poorly, always having mods for both offense and defense and being better at hitting the eject button on a bad move with a supernatural boost. So at least part of what we're seeing is that the skill floor on Luke is way higher than on Wedge. Not to say that Luke isn't better than Wedge, he definitely is. But given the skew in Rebel players/playstyles that difference in floor makes an outsized result in outcome well beyond their actual relative merits

Are we willing to really say that the average person playing rebels is so much worse than every other faction, and that's why we see Luke being better than Wedge? Why don't we do the same thing for other factions? X is actually great, but the average Y faction player is trash? I don't think I'd make that argument about any ship in any faction (yet).

1 hour ago, Sunitsa said:

AdvSensor torpedoes Redling + Juke Whisper are 117 points

Fearless Fenn Rau + Moldy Crow Palob are 121 points

That's why I don't think Luke+Sabine could be the core of a rebel list: you are going to face lists which cores are those and you fall off worse on comparison

I don't think I agree with that - Luke + Sabine are, at worst, in the same ballpark of value as those other two options.

1 hour ago, Sunitsa said:

However, I checked it and it turns out the Spanish (which accounts for more than half the data) don't seem to use SupNat almost at all: only 3 out of 40 Luke had it (assuming all the lists are correct which is something I start to doubt)

Good question, it will need to see play with the right wingmates. As I said I'm a strong beleiver of wedge + 3 beefy generics which is an archetype that I still didn't really see showing up in either of those tournament (the list went 4-1 at the UKTC thought, but that was a team tournament and it was only played by one team).

I don't have any stock on Wedge being good either, it's just that my personal experience so far is telling me he's good once is put in the right setting to shine and meanwhile I'm finding the obnoxious presence of so many ps 6 (or ps5 with crazy bids) making it harder to SupNat Luke to justify his cost.

I wasn't even paying that much attention on tournament data other than what was in the cut until you pointed them out to me, but I have to say it was an interesting look.

Rebels future imo is the right 4 ships list combination and a skinny wedge really shine there (but rebels need to move away from Sabine shuttle and Blount as 2 piece of a 4 ships: they are good but die way too easely to be reliable)

I see 4 but yeah, low counts of supernatural luke at spanish nats. I find it suspect that we don't see the beefy generics doing well, and we don't see wedge doing well, but the comination suddenly does. Obviously that doesn't mean it isn't good, but it's a "I'll believe it when I see it".

I'm surprised to hear complaints of Sabine dying too easily 0. She's 38 points. Do you also feel generic strikers die too easily? That's her price range. If she survives a single turn, she was at a minimum as tanky as a generic X-Wing because of the free evade every turn.

Just now, Brunas said:

Are we willing to really say that the average person playing rebels is so much worse than every other faction, and that's why we see Luke being better than Wedge? Why don't we do the same thing for other factions? X is actually great, but the average Y faction player is trash? I don't think I'd make that argument about any ship in any faction (yet).

*cough* I think you um... kind of did say that...

But in all seriousness there's something of a consensus, right or wrong it exists, that Rebels are worse than the other factions, That pushes try hards to the other factions and waters down the quality of remaining Rebel players. More importantly though I am absolutely not ascribing all of the difference to that. Luke is better than Wedge so it's unsurprising lists with him do better, but on top of that the people who are more capable of leveraging Wedge... aren't playing Wedge. That's what leads us to towards having numbers that show Wedge sucking hard when in reality he's probably just not as good as Luke.

B-Wings are trash. If you want strong generic jousters, you want to run U's.

1 hour ago, Brunas said:

I find it suspect that we don't see the beefy generics doing well, and we don't see wedge doing well, but the comination suddenly does. Obviously that doesn't mean it isn't good, but it's a "I'll believe it when I see it".

We aren't actually seeing generics at all so far, if not in some weird overbloated versions. Most 4 ships rebel lists seem to involve some combination of arguably inefficient uniques pilot rather than one or two good uniques + beefy and cheap generics

1 hour ago, Brunas said:

I'm surprised to hear complaints of Sabine dying too easily 0. She's 38 points. Do you also feel generic strikers die too easily? That's her price range. If she survives a single turn, she was at a minimum as tanky as a generic X-Wing because of the free evade every turn.

Yeah, generic strikers die too easily, that's why they are played only in sloane swarms. One of my earlier points were also that generic x-wings are bad too for the same reason.

K-wings, U-wings and B-wings are the generics I'm considering as "good". So far I've been more convinced by B-wing but all of those 3 chassis deserve playtime

8 minutes ago, pheaver said:

B-Wings are trash. If you want strong generic jousters, you want to run U's.

I should try U-wings more probably. I like bwings because their ability to play on small spaces and for the linked action, but U-wings should be fine too

34 minutes ago, pheaver said:

B-Wings are trash. If you want strong generic jousters, you want to run U's.

Wow good thing I'm already drinking my sorrows away tonight

1 minute ago, catachanninja said:

Wow good thing I'm already drinking my sorrows away tonight

F

1 hour ago, Makaze said:

*cough* I think you um... kind of did say that...

But in all seriousness there's something of a consensus, right or wrong it exists, that Rebels are worse than the other factions, That pushes try hards to the other factions and waters down the quality of remaining Rebel players. More importantly though I am absolutely not ascribing all of the difference to that.

Haha, I was trying to make the opposite point! There are surely some absolute beginners that pick Wedge at higher rates than other pilots, but I don't think there's any way they could do it at the rates required to skew it this amount if he were actually good.

10 hours ago, Brunas said:

I don't think I agree with that - Luke + Sabine are, at worst, in the same ballpark of value as those other two options.

No way. Luke is really good, but Sabine is way too squishy to really be a "backbone" ship, especially when compared to Redline or Palob.

Yes, she's much cheaper, but then if you want to have a Luke + 1 core, you should save some points from Luke (Protorp?) and bring some actually solid ship instead of Sabine.

They indeed don't have too many good options for that, but I would say Luke + Norra would be much, much more solid core.

8 hours ago, Brunas said:

Haha, I was trying to make the opposite point! There are surely some absolute beginners that pick Wedge at higher rates than other pilots, but I don't think there's any way they could do it at the rates required to skew it this amount if he were actually good.

Three tournaments is such a low amount of data that we should definitely keep away from doing any kind of conclusions.

This really reminds me of the worst of Metawing - bold conclusions based on low quality data, reinforcing pre-existing biases.

9 minutes ago, baranidlo said:

No way. Luke is really good, but Sabine is way too squishy to really be a "backbone" ship, especially when compared to Redline or Palob.

Yes, she's much cheaper, but then if you want to have a Luke + 1 core, you should save some points from Luke (Protorp?) and bring some actually solid ship instead of Sabine.

They indeed don't have too many good options for that, but I would say Luke + Norra would be much, much more solid core.

Ok

NORDICS TOP16.

No idea on total attendance, lists were posted by Jesper on a FB group

• Fenn Guri Teroch

• Boba 4Lom Palob

• Boba Palob l337 Quad

• Jonus 4xGamma (barrage+bombs)

• Wedge Sabine NorraY JanOrs

• Wedge Luke Sabine

• Wedge Garven Dutch (2x selfless)

• Rhymer Jendon x2Gamma x1Scimitar

• Redline Deathrain 2xScimitar

• EchoSloane PureSabacc 2xSaberAce

• RedlineAdvSens Deathrain Jonus Rhymer

• Boba Guri (198, dengar gunner on boba)

• Boba 4Lom Palob

• RedlineAdvSens Deathrain LambdaVader

• Boba 4Lom Palob

• WhisperVader Deathrain Deathfire Nightbeast

3 Rebels, 6 scum, 7 imperials

Only 1 scum list without boba.

Wedge in all rebel lists.

Only 1 Sloane.

5 Boba, 4 Deathrain, 4 Palob, 3 Redline, 3 Wedge, 3 generic bombers and other things I stopped counting

EDIT: another interesting thing is only 4 lists had a ps6, 3 of which were rebels. 9 carried ordnance