I am a new player that just picked up the core sets this month. My question is simple; could somebody please tell me why Biggs Darklighter is such a big deal and why so many people are crying for a fix? I read the pilot ability and it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.

Well, first off just about everyone agrees that the original X-wing needs a little something to make it more useable. There's less agreement on what it is. The problem is Biggs. Even the Devs stated that.

Biggs, when flown in formation with his squad mates acts like a laser magnet, protecting more valuable ships. This was especially brutal before the nerf because the enemy had to choose a weapon that could attack Biggs. So during the first round or two of combat the enemy was concentrating on Biggs leaving the rest of your squad alone. Concentrating fire is always good but Biggs might not be the biggest threat or easiest target. He screwed with target priority in a big way.

Check out some of the matches on YouTube. Look for the ones with Rebels vs anybody else. More often than not Biggs will be in the squad. Watch how he is used to protect the other ships. With several choices of astromechs to enhance his life expectancy he can be more difficult to kill than normal and this leads to calls of "once per round" or other nerfs of his ability.

Being a new player, having a ship act as the sacrificial lamb is kind of counter intuitive. But as you develop squads and strategies you'll realise that it's a viable tool to keep another ship(s) alive longer.

Put Biggs behind formation

Your list is at rangec1 of enemy but enemy must shoot range 2 Biggs

Profit

21 hours ago, Face Fisted Again said:

I am a new player that just picked up the core sets this month. My question is simple; could somebody please tell me why Biggs Darklighter is such a big deal and why so many people are crying for a fix? I read the pilot ability and it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.

Some people think he's too damaging, forcing your targetting choice. In general, Biggs allows you to spread damage - which keeps your guns in play longer. It can be built quite tanky, but at the same time, the more defense you give biggs, the less offense your squad has, and you have to tether the squad to biggs. It's a strong ability, play against some various builds... it tends to prey upon against low ship count squads better

An important part of winning a game involves coming up with a plan before the game. How you plan on using your list, what they are going to do, and how your ships inter-operate with each other. Another, possibly more important part, is looking at your opponents list, realizing how it operates, and countering or stopping them from being able to execute their plan.

Biggs allows you to protect vital ships from being attacked for generally one or two rounds of combat, maybe even more depending on other factors. During those two rounds, the Biggs player has free reign to try to disrupt the non-Biggs players list. This can result in an advantage as one side loses critical ships first, while the other side loses a meat wall.

If you trade Biggs for something very important to your opponents list, while keeping your important ships alive, you will likely win.

I dislike Biggs because the pilot ability takes away choice and control from a player in a fashion that I find heavy-handed. While control elements like stress and ion exist, Biggs is a bit more extreme.

23 hours ago, Face Fisted Again said:

I am a new player that just picked up the core sets this month. My question is simple; could somebody please tell me why Biggs Darklighter is such a big deal and why so many people are crying for a fix? I read the pilot ability and it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.

Don't pay attention to the 4 people that posted above me, they're talking in general terms about a problem that has only arisen in the last few waves. It's not really Biggs' ability, it's a bunch of things that Biggs can protect or that can protect Biggs now after 11 waves.

Biggs with 3 other X-Wings isn't a problem.

Biggs with regenerating ships or Lowhhrick or a 70+point Kanan Ghost are problems.

Take this build for example: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/737359/stage-4-cancer

When all of the abilities are triggering you're never killing anything. That's way different from just flying 4 X-Wings, one of which happens to be Biggs.

This:

Biggs was a great friend/mentor of Luke and hero in the movies, protecting other pilots by being the Ace between them and the enemy. Sadly, his current ability makes him a coward that flies behind the ships he's protecting, which is beyond illogical and simply stupid. In games, he's nothing more than a mind-bending, choice-stealing coward that is a meat cushion for your squads hitters. It's bad for the game and for the T-65 and it's potential buffs; plus it is a terrible design constraint for the entire Rebel faction; there is no good to be found in his ability in any way. He will be getting a proper errata very soon for the releases Selflessness and Reinforce has heralded this announcement. Biggs will one day soon be able to be the hero that he was in intended to be. We will keep the faith; hail the coming mustache.

Why is he good? he forces your opponent to split focus fire or take less desirable shots. However, Biggs is a strange beast.

He has a very strange skill cap for flying. If you are not very good at flying or your opponent is strictly better than you Biggs is a challenge to deal with because he can put you in situations that are not very good for you forcing you to split your fire. However, if you are a strong flying pilot against a weaker pilot using Biggs you can generally outplay him and he then becomes just a T-65 with nothing special.

So the better you are the worse he gets relatively speaking if he is on the opponents side of the board, and if you are flying Biggs and your opponent is a better flyer than you the worse he is for you. (Now this is true with many pilots but it's magnified with Biggs)

That's part of why I don't fly Biggs myself, against good players he is not that great and those are the players I need every edge to beat. By the same context, I usually am happy to see Biggs on the other side of the board especially if I believe I can outfly my opponent because I know he won't be an issue and if the list is designed around Biggs it will just fall apart.

I personally don't think he needs a nerf and I don't personally think he is that strong, however, everyone will have differing opinions. I think Biggs is an ok pilot it really rewards good flying either against him or with him, but I see the same people complaining about him that complain that piloting does not matter in this game, this perplexes me.

Well that has always been overstatement about Biggs. Never really got in my way to being OP. Last game I played where was Biggs and I didn't have to shoot him more than once, I lost it, but not because of him.

So no biggie!

Well before the only thing Biggs was good at is being the one that takes all the damage. So Biggs will stop a maybe a couple of attacks (a few if you were lucky) and die or get that classic damage card that kills EPTs and Pilot Abilities. There wasn't a way to spread it out nor a way to cover Biggs. I saw E-wings with Draw Their Fire and R2-D2 to act as the damage sponge back in Wave 4. In Wave 8 came the Kennan Tactical Jammer where Biggs will fly behind Kennan who will not only defend Biggs but give him an extra die even against secondary weapons like HLC.

Now fast forward to Wave 10, you got all the stuff from the past plus Rex which drops down an attacker that is firing at Biggs, plus Selflessness which acts like Biggs for a single attack plus ways to pull damage off of Biggs. So the damage sponge list is here. It was like what was that pokemon ability Alkazam or Clafary? The one that lets you spread out all the damage so nearly every one shares damage until a critical point is reached where everyone has a single hit point left. It is spirit link for your ships. Biggs will take the attacks and the rest of the list will take the damage and make any attack against biggs weaker.

So there you go, just shows you the complications of accretion. Before Biggs was just a mild nuisance but you could easily kill him and be on your way. Now you have to get every ship down to their last hit before Biggs will finally die.

11 hours ago, SaltMaster 5000 said:

Don't pay attention to the 4 people that posted above me, they're talking in general terms about a problem that has only arisen in the last few waves. It's not really Biggs' ability, it's a bunch of things that Biggs can protect or that can protect Biggs now after 11 waves.

Biggs with 3 other X-Wings isn't a problem.

Biggs with regenerating ships or Lowhhrick or a 70+point Kanan Ghost are problems.

Take this build for example: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/737359/stage-4-cancer

When all of the abilities are triggering you're never killing anything. That's way different from just flying 4 X-Wings, one of which happens to be Biggs.

Why does Stage 4 Cancer Rex have Chips?

11 hours ago, SaltMaster 5000 said:

Don't pay attention to the 4 people that posted above me, they're talking in general terms about a problem that has only arisen in the last few waves. It's not really Biggs' ability, it's a bunch of things that Biggs can protect or that can protect Biggs now after 11 waves.

Biggs with 3 other X-Wings isn't a problem.

Biggs with regenerating ships or Lowhhrick or a 70+point Kanan Ghost are problems.

Take this build for example: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/737359/stage-4-cancer

When all of the abilities are triggering you're never killing anything. That's way different from just flying 4 X-Wings, one of which happens to be Biggs.

Ya know, SaltMaster, you can be pretty insightful.

When you aren't being a scoundrel.

19 minutes ago, drail14me said:

Why does Stage 4 Cancer Rex have Chips?

The real question is ... why doesn't Zeb have Chips?

5 minutes ago, Hawkstrike said:

The real question is ... why doesn't Zeb have Chips?

Why does Zeb need Chips?

38 minutes ago, drail14me said:

Why does Zeb need Chips?

Zeb and Rex are all about the upgrade bling, yo.

4 hours ago, Marinealver said:

Well before the only thing Biggs was good at is being the one that takes all the damage. So Biggs will stop a maybe a couple of attacks (a few if you were lucky) and die or get that classic damage card that kills EPTs and Pilot Abilities. There wasn't a way to spread it out nor a way to cover Biggs. I saw E-wings with Draw Their Fire and R2-D2 to act as the damage sponge back in Wave 4. In Wave 8 came the Kennan Tactical Jammer where Biggs will fly behind Kennan who will not only defend Biggs but give him an extra die even against secondary weapons like HLC.

Now fast forward to Wave 10, you got all the stuff from the past plus Rex which drops down an attacker that is firing at Biggs, plus Selflessness which acts like Biggs for a single attack plus ways to pull damage off of Biggs. So the damage sponge list is here. It was like what was that pokemon ability Alkazam or Clafary? The one that lets you spread out all the damage so nearly every one shares damage until a critical point is reached where everyone has a single hit point left. It is spirit link for your ships. Biggs will take the attacks and the rest of the list will take the damage and make any attack against biggs weaker.

So there you go, just shows you the complications of accretion. Before Biggs was just a mild nuisance but you could easily kill him and be on your way. Now you have to get every ship down to their last hit before Biggs will finally die.

Well that is just one scenario that people play him, but it's not that bad in my personal level. I have never encountered Biggs in tournaments that it would have caused me to really hate him. And almost needless to say what up with casual games, my favorite stuff always!

I do like tournaments, but I do them to get some cool upgrades and chase some dice to my collection!

1 hour ago, Hawkstrike said:

The real question is ... why doesn't Zeb have Chips?

I've heard this conversation before.

4 hours ago, Zazaa said:

Well that is just one scenario that people play him, but it's not that bad in my personal level. I have never encountered Biggs in tournaments that it would have caused me to really hate him. And almost needless to say what up with casual games, my favorite stuff always!

I do like tournaments, but I do them to get some cool upgrades and chase some dice to my collection!

Biggs is not new to the tournament scene. The Biggs and B-wings was one such list which kept your B-wings in longer to do more damage since their 1 agility made them easy to focus down. But I can understand the frustration with the new Biggs Sponge. You are forced to attack Biggs, now not all attacks are going to be a bad attack such as range 3 but there are ways to reduce your your attacks now byt lowering both your attack and damage. Further more there are ways to remove damage from Biggs (draw their fire, selflessness). So as you get ready to roll your 7 red dice attack (power creep from 5) it won't be enough to kill biggs. It is like the meta is moving back to tanks and (going) to time. Which brings back to MOV and point vaulting.

6 hours ago, drail14me said:

Why does Zeb need Chips?

Exactly. One of three things happens when you put pointless upgrades on ships:

1.) Your opponent spends all of his set up time paying attention to your stupid distraction. Scurggs are great for this. Not only will their marksmanship Luke die in a hail of Deadeye missiles, they will have spent all of their setup thinking time going through Havoc, Cikatro, Genius and Collision Detector instead of thinking about what's actually in your list

2.) Your opponent knows that you're trying to flood new players with pointless information and goes on tilt.

3.) Nothing.

As Saltmaster said, Biggs is only as good as the ships he is protecting. Focus fire is a natural balancing mechanic of the game, where even the most efficient and durable ships can be defeated when 100 points of the opponent's guns are brought to bear on them each turn. Biggs negates that strategy and gives the Biggs player 1 or 2 key turns to kill enemy ships and deny the opponent the ability to focus 100 points of firepower on whatever ship Biggs is protecting, allowing that ship to better leverage its defensive powers.

* Biggs messes with the opponent's target priority in a more powerful way than anything else in the game
* Biggs allows for relative glass cannons to put in damage uncontested while Biggs soaks up all the return fire
* Since Biggs exists at all, the designers set new Rebel ship stat lines with the assumption Biggs will be fielded with them, this results in many Rebel ships being somewhat weaker than their counterparts in other factions (the "Biggs Tax"), and forces Rebel players to either field Biggs to be competitive or field the handful of pilots that aren't inherently weak due to the "Biggs Tax"
* The T65 X Wing is generally considered underpowered today, but due to the strength of Biggs the designers can't release an "X Wing Fix" unless it were to be designed in such a way that Biggs gets no more than a minimal boost, which makes even people who fly Biggs want a Biggs nerf just to make the other T65's viable again

1 hour ago, Joe Censored said:

* Biggs messes with the opponent's target priority in a more powerful way than anything else in the game
* Biggs allows for relative glass cannons to put in damage uncontested while Biggs soaks up all the return fire
* Since Biggs exists at all, the designers set new Rebel ship stat lines with the assumption Biggs will be fielded with them, this results in many Rebel ships being somewhat weaker than their counterparts in other factions (the "Biggs Tax"), and forces Rebel players to either field Biggs to be competitive or field the handful of pilots that aren't inherently weak due to the "Biggs Tax"
* The T65 X Wing is generally considered underpowered today, but due to the strength of Biggs the designers can't release an "X Wing Fix" unless it were to be designed in such a way that Biggs gets no more than a minimal boost, which makes even people who fly Biggs want a Biggs nerf just to make the other T65's viable again

1.) It never used to be this way. It used to be that he just protected 3 B-Wings and focusing Biggs down was no different from focusing down a B-Wing.

2.) Yep. Without Biggs many things would be unplayable due to power creep.

3.) bull. FFG is just awful at game balance. There is no Biggs tax, Biggs wasn't relevant from wave 4 until wave 8. And then when wave 8 arrived, they gave Biggs Kanan and Sabine for Miranda. The faction was not at all designed around a Biggs tax. Biggs is just a meat shield for things that are already powerful independent of Biggs being there.

And even if there was a Biggs tax, there certainly isn't one anymore. See: Lowhhrick.

FFG is poor at balancing this game. "Biggs tax" is just an excuse that the designers use and something that Mynock Squadron says in order to sound smart. Poe during the wave 7 meta dominated just the same without Biggs. Miranda currently is real strong with Dash/Leebo or Nym. The Stresshog used to be used in Panic Attack without Biggs. Kanan would be good with any number of ships, same with Hera. Biggs waves 1-3 just forced your opponent to play well and focus fire. None of this **** was designed with a "Biggs Tax" in mind.

Havoc, Cikatro, Genius and Collision Detector

Not legal, Havoc removes the crew slot

2 minutes ago, Kalandros said:

Not legal, Havoc removes the crew slot

Cikatro is on another Scourge. My favorite thing about the *** non-Krayt podcasts is their propensity to mistakenly call it the, "Scourge".